With a new contract in place, negotiators for Farrell Area School District and its teachers union can look forward to several weeks of rest before starting the process all over again.

Both sides approved a one-year contract Monday that is retroactive to July 1 and lasts until June 30.

Farrell Teachers Association ratified the contract "overwhelmingly" Monday afternoon, said chief board negotiator James Nevant II, and the school board voted 6-0 to approve it shortly afterward.

School board members Lester Robinson Jr., Michael Wright, Sadie R. Benham, Jerome Flint, Ronald Weston and Joseph "Peppy" Costa voted in favor of the contract.

James Guerino and Larry Manilla, who are married to teachers, abstained.

Edward Zappa was absent.

The votes cap 11 months of negotiations and about 15 bargaining sessions.

The 92 teachers will receive an average 3.3 percent salary hike, or $1,475 for each teacher.

The average salary is $45,678. The starting salary remains at $32,022, and the maximum salary will rise from about $55,000 to $56,916 for a teacher with a master's degree and 30 hours of continuing education credits.

The teachers agreed to freeze the stipends they receive for extracurricular activities.

"That was a major concession and we appreciate that," Nevant said.

Union President Ron Reed said teachers "hope to iron out some of the inequities in activities payments in the next round but we feel it's a good contract for one year and is in everyone's best interest."

The contract will cost the district an extra $135,000.

"They helped us come in under budget -- not by much," Nevant said of what the district had set aside for teacher salaries. "We have a contract we know we can afford."

Nevant, the board's solicitor, acknowledged that the one-year term was unusual. The previous pact was for five years, and the contract before that was for three years.

"Both sides came to accept the idea that the economic situation is such that we need to monitor it on a year-to-year basis," Nevant said.

With the Public School Employees' Retirement System's vote Friday to triple contributions that school districts must make to the state's school pension fund, the one-year pact "proved to be a prudent move on both sides," Nevant said.

Aside from salaries, the two sides agreed to allow teachers to have their paychecks deposited directly into their bank accounts, set aside personal work time for teachers after in-service training, and increase the value of unused sick days in severance packages from $35 to $40 a day.

Negotiators have until Jan. 10 to hold their first meeting on the next round of contract talks. It is unlikely financial issues will be addressed until after the board approves a new budget in May or June, Nevant said.

The board is negotiating with the eight custodial, janitorial and maintenance employees who are members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1379.

Three sessions have been held, Nevant said.

"That's moving along quite constructively," he said. "We look forward to an agreement in the near future."

The union is in the middle of a one-year extension of the previous contract, which ended June 30.