Dear Marlboro Central School District Community,
As many of you in the community are aware, our team, with our active involvement and direction, has been meeting with the Marlboro Faculty Association (MFA) both informally and formally to reach a new agreement, since January 2025. The Board of Education remains fully committed to doing what’s best for our students, and reaching a fair contract with the MFA is a top priority.
As is standard practice in negotiations, both sides agreed to keep the details of our discussions confidential. That changed on November 18, 2025, when the MFA announced that they firmly believed the process had reached an impasse.
Now that the Board is no longer bound by our agreement to maintain confidentiality, the Board is free to share more detailed information regarding these negotiations with our community. The purpose of this letter is to advise our community regarding the current status of negotiations and to provide a clear understanding of the Board’s balanced and thoughtful approach to this critically important process.
Balancing Respect and Responsibility
In the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement, the role of a Board of Education is centered on a dual commitment. We deeply respect and value the work our teachers and all staff members do every day to create the best educational environment and experiences for our students. The fact that we have not yet reached an agreement in no way diminishes our appreciation for the outstanding work they perform in our classrooms. We absolutely understand and appreciate the fundamental role our teaching staff plays in the continued academic success of our District.
However, as Trustees, we must balance this deep appreciation with our duty to be fiscally responsible and prudent for all residents and taxpayers. Every decision we make, especially regarding wage and benefit packages, must take into account the financial impact on our entire community, both in the short and long terms.
We are negotiating in a very challenging fiscal climate. Our District costs, including many unfunded mandates from New York State, continue to rise, while our revenue streams are stagnant or declining. The state-mandated tax cap model has placed severe restrictions on our budget flexibility. Given the specific financial pressures facing our community, we recognize the need for a truly sustainable model of compensation. Our goal is to ensure our academic programs remain of the highest quality for the future, while offering a compensation plan that is fair to our teachers and responsible to our taxpayers.
Status of Negotiations and Setting the Record Straight
Since negotiations began, our team has met with MFA representatives a total of eleven times formally, along with multiple informal meetings, all in a concerted effort to find common ground.
We want to address the assertion that teachers are "working without a contract." This is factually incorrect. Although the previous contract expired on June 30, 2025, the law (Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law) requires us to continue the full terms and conditions of the expired contract until a new one is ratified. This means:
• All eligible teachers received their scheduled step increases on the salary schedule as of July 1, 2025. This resulted in an average salary increase of approximately 3.1% for all those faculty members who were on Steps 1-18.
• Benefits such as health insurance and paid leave remain in full force and effect.
• All contractual agreements regarding working conditions remain in effect.
• The current per-credit payment for graduate and in-service coursework, which costs the District nearly $300,000 annually, also continues.
• Furthermore, even under the expired contract, the District will pay out approximately $1.3 million in longevity payments this year alone.
It is also important to note that, although the MFA has been very public in stating that the current contract expired as of June 30, 2025, even going so far as to state the number of days that have passed since expiration, when the Board’s negotiating team requested that the parties negotiate over the summer in the hopes of having an agreement in place before the commencement of school in September, this request was flatly refused by the MFA.
Regarding other public statements:
• Teacher Recruitment and Retention: We firmly believe Marlboro remains a highly desirable place for educators to work. Our current total compensation package has proven to be competitive and has not been an impediment to recruiting high-quality new teachers or retaining our experienced, outstanding staff.
• Administrative Salaries: Contrary to recent public claims by the MFA, the salaries for four Central Office administrators were increased by 2.25%, not 9%. Additionally, these administrators do not receive the step increases that most teachers do. Furthermore, the 2.25% increase was for the 2025-2026 school year and the District has not entered into any commitment of any base salary increase with these Central Office administrators beyond the 2026-2027 school year. This was agreed upon based on the fiscal uncertainties that exist.
Marlboro CSD Compensation Data
We want to share a few facts to provide perspective on our teachers' salaries compared to those in Orange and Ulster Counties:
• Starting Salaries (Steps 1-5): When accounting for experience, our starting pay rates place us in the mid-range for the two counties among all school districts reporting data for 2023-24.
• Mid-Career Salaries (Steps 10-15): We are in the mid to upper-range of that same group.
• Top-End Compensation: Our top step salaries, combined with the substantial longevity payments awarded for years of service in Marlboro, place us at or near the top of that group.
The career-long earnings data (30-year cumulative earnings), which includes longevity payments, shows that Marlboro ranks second among the twelve comparable school districts we track in the Orange/Ulster region for bargaining purposes (based on 2024-25 data). In some cases, the total earnings disparity over 30 years exceeds $300,000.
Our negotiating team has repeatedly shared this specific comparative and budgetary data with the MFA, demonstrating that our current offer is fair and reasonable. Moreover, the current offer from the District exceeds the annual increase from the expired contract and other settlements over the past ten years. The predicted financial impact on the tax levy the current offer yields compared to the MFA’s proposal are substantial. We have consistently asked the MFA to provide data to justify their current demands and to explain how their proposals can be funded without significant tax levy increases or severely impacting our operating budget and potentially leading to staff reductions, increased class sizes, among other detriments to our academics, athletics, and arts programs. We have not been provided this data. Furthermore, when it was explained that significantly exceeding what the District has offered would have a disastrous impact upon our educational program, including necessitating staff layoffs, this information was met with what can only be described as indifference on the part of the MFA’s negotiating team. In fact, the MFA actually responded that this significant, mutual concern regarding the negotiated economic package for MFA members was “not our problem.”
Next Steps: Moving Forward Together
At our last bargaining session on November 18, 2025, the MFA declared an impasse, stating, "we’re done." We do not believe we are "done." We believe further respectful dialogue and the mutual exchange of data can still bring us closer to an amicable resolution.
However, we respect the MFA’s legal right to file for impasse with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) and seek mediation. Please be assured that your Board of Education and its team will continue to work in good faith throughout the mediation process.
We are committed to reaching an agreement that is fair and equitable for our valued MFA members while simultaneously being fiscally responsible to our already overburdened taxpayers.
We will follow up soon with more detailed communication outlining the specific financial positions of both parties.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve this community. We appreciate your continued support for our efforts on behalf of our great school district and our students.
Sincerely,
Board of Education Trustees
Antonia Uszenski, President
James Mullen, Vice-President
Patricia Benninger
James Kuha
Faith Nannini
JoAnn Reed
Harry Toromonides