Alberta wage increase this year!

Wage ruling costs school boards $30 million; Arbitrator hands teachers 5.99% salary increase
Calgary Herald, Thu Feb 4 2010, Section: City & Region, Byline: Sarah McGinnis [excerpts for space]

..... an arbitrator ruled Alberta teachers are owed more under a five-year agreement with the province.

.... it's unclear when the province will reimburse districts for the $23-million expense.

"I don't have the $23 million in my budget this year," Alberta Education Minister Dave Hancock said Wednesday. "We went back to school boards in August to ask for some help from them. This is something I am going to have to go to Treasury Board with."

Alberta's 43,000 teachers and the province have been battling over salaries for almost a year.

According to the agreement, annual wage increases for teachers were to be tied to Alberta's average weekly earnings index. But in the spring of 2009, Statistics Canada revised how it calculates the index -- moving the figure from 4.82 to 5.99 per cent.

The difference translates into an additional $23 million in salaries this fiscal year -- or $30 million more over the 2009-10 school year.
...... the extra wages, which are retroactive to Sept. 1.
......This figure doesn't include higher teacher salaries for the remainder of this school year.

Nor does it include contracts for the CBE's non-teaching staff, which are also tied to the average weekly earnings index.
...... [Calgary] Board chairwoman Marge Belcourt said the arbitrator's decision will leave very little to cover future financial surprises, especially after the province clawed back $40 million from school boards earlier this year.
......arbitrator Andrew Sims ruled teachers were entitled to more.

"This is not a situation where the agreed upon index has ceased to exist, or has changed in a way where it purports to report on something different," Sims said in his 36-page ruling.

"I have no discretion to alter what the parties, by contract, have agreed upon," Sims added.
.......