The contract dispute between the Bloomington Education Association (BEA) and the school district administrators will enter mediation under the guidance of a federal mediator.  The teachers have been working without a contract since July of 2014.  The federal mediator was requested by the teachers union, who felt negotiations with the district were not moving at all.  The district released a statement calling the arrival of the mediator a positive development. 

The contract dispute mainly concerns compensation issues:  Salaries for teachers and medical insurance benefits.  The BEA argues that over the course of the previous five-year contract compensation gains from the prior negotiation have been all but erased by rising health care premiums, reducing the real income of teachers in the district.  Both sides have been working since April 2014 to bridge the gap.  A complicating factor is that healthcare costs are expected to continue to rise, so the teachers want any new contract to compensate for that as well. 

The district, for its part, acknowledges that teacher compensation has been reduced in practice by the rising costs of health plans, but also notes that the problem is not confined to the teachers, and that county and district costs have also been rising steadily. 

Both sides expressed optimism, however, that the new mediation efforts would result in an agreement, and the negotiations, as prolonged as they are, have not broken down into negativity as in other school districts.  Both sides have reiterated their commitment to settling the contract as fairly as possible while acknowledging that there is a lot of daylight between their positions.