Wilton Teachers Contract Enters Binding Arbitration

On top of the Wilton School District is also facing a future rise in teacher salaries over the next several years.

Members of the and school administration were reportedly expected to meet today with representatives of the Wilton Education Association, the town’s teachers union, to set a date to start the binding arbitration process following the recent breakdown in negotiations on the teachers contract, .

However unlike past binding arbitration proceedings, which have been conducted behind closed doors, today’s meeting is open to the public, as per a recent reinterpretation of the Freedom of Information rules, according to a report in the Wilton Bulletin.

According to the report, citing an April posting on the Connecticut Education Law Blog, such hearings are now open to the public, due to a recent FOIC decision resulting from a complaint brought by the Waterbury Republican-American Newspaper.

“In a decision which is likely to change the dynamics of interest arbitration proceedings in Connecticut, the Freedom of Information Commission has ruled that the decades long presumption that teacher interest arbitration hearings are closed to the public, is incorrect,” the blog post states.

According to the post, the newspaper sought to attend hearings between the Torrington Board of Education and the Torrington Education Association but was denied. It then filed an FOI complaint and the commission ruled in February 2011 “that interest arbitration panels under the Teacher Negotiations Act are a ‘committee’ of the State Board of Education, thus subject to the requirements of the Act” — basically that the meetings never should have been closed to the public in the first place.

“It is unclear whether the same rule will apply to the arbitration of non-certified contracts under the Municipal Employees Relations Act,” the blog states.