COEUR d'ALENE - By the end of the week, teachers in Coeur d'Alene will likely be working with a contract in place for the first time this school year.

Members of the Coeur d'Alene Education Association met after school Monday at Lake City High School to consider a tentative agreement reached last week - with the help of a federal mediator - between the negotiating teams for the teachers union and the school board.

The teachers ratified the agreement. Now, the school board must do the same.

A school district spokeswoman, Laura Rumpler, said the trustees plan to meet late Thursday afternoon to consider ratification of the mediated agreement.

The new contract includes a 0.5 percent base salary increase, no change to the health insurance co-payment amount or the co-insurance responsibility, a lowering of the district's contribution to the family health insurance premium from 69 percent to 68 percent, and the teachers eligible for raises under the state's "steps and lanes" system will receive those raises.

Salaries and the cost of health insurance benefits were the central sticking points when negotiating teams hit an impasse Aug. 25, the 11th time the groups had met for collective bargaining since May.

The school board's final offer included no base salary increase for employees. It did allow for "steps and lanes" salary increases for teachers and other eligible, certificate-holding employees based on years of service and continuing education.

The teachers union's last proposal called for a 0.9 percent increase to the salary base, and no change to the benefits package.

The board's final proposal called for district employees to share the burden of a $500,000 hike in the overall insurance premium. The district would pay $330,581 of the premium increase and the balance would be passed on to employees through a hike in office visit co-payments from $20/$40 to $30/$60 and an increased coinsurance responsibility from 20 percent to 30 percent.

The board also proposed lowering the district's contribution to the cost of family premiums from 69 percent to 67 percent.