Baker School Board Approves Three-Year Teacher Contract: 2.5% COLA Annually, $1,600

The Baker School Board voted to approve a three-year contract with the district’s teachers on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026, adopting 2.5% cost-of-living pay increases in each contract year and a district contribution of $1,600 per month toward employees’ health insurance; the agreement takes effect July 1, 2026, and runs through June 30, 2029. Board materials state the contract “covers salary and negotiated terms for teacher staff.”

The contract had been ratified by the teachers’ union, which is identified variously as the Baker Education Association and the Baker County Education Association in district notices; district documents describe the union as representing “125 or so teachers.” The board considered the teachers’ three-year agreement alongside a separate support-staff contract negotiation on the same agenda.

District background frames the 2026 pact as the second teacher contract since a sweeping February 2023 salary-schedule overhaul that raised the base pay for a first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree and no additional college credit from $38,349 to $60,000 - a more than $21,000, or 56% increase. That 2023 schedule change altered the district’s 16-step pay system into a four-tier salary schedule and boosted personnel costs by about $2.3 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2024. Superintendent Erin Lair said at the time, “This is an investment as much, or more, about the retention of the amazing teaching staff we have in Baker as it is about recruiting new teachers to Baker. We expect this investment to have big returns for not just our teachers directly, but for the district as a whole, for our students and families, for our local economy.” School board member Andrew Bryan, a former Baker City councilor, called the 2023 decision “probably the most seminal moment” in his 17 years as an elected official.

The 2026 agreement follows a more modest two-year contract approved in April 2024 that extended through June 30, 2026 and included 1% salary increases each year plus a $720 annual stipend for special-education teachers and increases to the monthly cap on district health-insurance contributions. Support-staff negotiations on the Feb. 17 agenda covered an array of operational revisions, including updated salary schedules for 2025-26, adjustments to longevity pay, clarified employment-status procedures, leave and overtime policy revisions, changes to transportation pay, CDL-holder bonuses, and paid supplements for nutrition services employees who complete advanced training.

The board packet also included capital and procurement items tied to district workforce development, including a proposed $275,000 bid award to Rock Contractor Custom Homes and Roofing, Inc., for renovation and expansion of the livestock and swine barns at Baker County High School, funded through the AgTech Workforce Capitalization Grant.

Several implementation details were not included in the materials posted with the board action: the vote tally on Feb. 17, the union’s ratification date and vote count, how the 2.5% COLA will be applied across the salary schedule, and whether the $1,600 monthly health contribution is a flat per-employee payment or a capped contribution by plan tier. District communications coordinator Lindsey McDowell, when summarizing staff departures since the 2023 overhaul, said, “Since then tall but one of the teachers who left the district did so by retiring, rather than resigning, said Lindsey McDowell, the district’s communications coordinator.” Those outstanding fiscal and contract mechanics remain to be clarified by the district finance and human resources offices as Baker schools plan budgets for the 2026–29 cycle.