By Jennifer Mrozowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Cincinnati school board on Monday agreed to a state-appointed fact-finder's recommendations for a three-year teachers contract estimated to cost an additional $81 million.

The contract vote came after the board started the process for placing a $65.5 million levy renewal on the November ballot. Board members Melanie Bates and Rick Williams voted against the renewal.

Bates said the district should consider whether the size of the levy is necessary when the district's enrollment is declining, while Williams said the board owes the community some discussion on how it's using tax dollars to improve student achievement.

The levy won't cost additional money. Residents now pay $300 annually for a home valued at $100,000 for that levy. District officials said failure of the levy would affect the 2005-06 budget and force cuts of at least $32 million that year.

"We can't function minus the renewal," said board member Catherine Ingram, who chairs the board's finance committee.

Bates and Williams also voted against the fact-finder's recommendations of the teachers contract. Ingram abstained.

The passage of the measure could end the contract dispute ongoing since March when the board voted 4-3 to reject a tentative agreement. Teachers overwhelmingly supported it during their voting process. Superintendent Alton Frailey at the time said he couldn't support the agreement, citing items such as a severance incentive package. The fact-finder cut the severance package from the contract.

Frailey supported the fact-finder's recommendations Monday.

"The language that remains is far less than perfect," he said, but "we have got to pull ourselves together as a school system."

The contract includes a 3.2 percent pay increase for the district's 3,500 teachers, psychologists, counselors and nurses retroactive to Jan. 1 with smaller raises the next two years. Teachers vote Tuesday and Wednesday on the fact-finder's recommendations, which include:

• An additional 3 percent raise for some of the most experienced teachers. The increase comes on top of an automatic 2.8 percent increase for those teachers.

• The hiring of additional teachers so more students have access to art and music teachers, counselors, social workers and librarians. The board estimates the cost at $1.6 million over the contract.

• Changing class size limits. The maximum class size in grades K-3 had been 18. The new contract allows more students per teacher when a teacher's assistant is in class. The contract also lowered the class size in grades 4-8 to 28. It had been 30.

E-mail jmrozowski@enquirer.com