LAS VEGAS (AP) — Public school teachers in Nevada’s most populous county now have a new contract after months of negotiations.

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, an arbitrator on Wednesday accepted a new contract for the 18,000 teachers in the Clark County School District, which is the fifth-largest in the nation and includes Las Vegas.

The deal ends an often bitter fight this year that pitted district teachers represented by their union — the Clark County Education Association — against the district’s School Board of Trustees and Superintendent Jesus Jara.

The Review Journal reports that the new contract includes base salary increases of 10% in the first year and 8% in the second year with additional pay for special education teachers.

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The newspaper said some back pay for this year will be distributed to teachers starting with the first pay period in March 2024.

The school district would increase its contributions toward monthly health care premiums by 19.7% while district employees would not pay more in premiums.

New starting annual pay for teachers will be $53,000 with the top salary at more than $131,000 when counting the 1.875% rise approved earlier this year by the Nevada Legislature.

The district has nearly 380 schools in Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County.

Contract talks had been ongoing since March over issues such as pay, benefits and working conditions. In September, waves of teachers called in sick over a number of days, forcing many Las Vegas-area public schools to close.

The teachers union had been seeking nearly 20% across-the-board pay raises over two years with additional compensation for special education teachers and teachers in high-vacancy, typically low-income schools.

The school district’s most recent offer reportedly was 17.4% raises over two years for public school teachers.

“This contract represents a pivotal moment in the long-standing efforts to get a qualified licensed educator in every classroom by addressing recruitment and retention issues through increasing compensation for educators in Clark County,” the teachers union said in a statement Wednesday.

Jara said he and the board of trustees is “pleased that the approved contract gives our teachers the historic pay increases they deserve while aligning with the $637 million budget the district allocated in our budget process for licensed personnel.”

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