There are no winners to be found in any school contract negotiations this year. Teachers, school officials and taxpayers will have to be satisfied with the agreement reached this week between the Fort Wayne Education Association and Fort Wayne Community Schools officials. The deal should make everyone unhappy.

Taxpayers will inevitably find fault in the incremental longevity raises preserved by the deal. The notion of any increase when many people are facing salary freezes, reductions or layoffs is difficult to comprehend.

But the step raises should be put in context: About a third of Fort Wayne teachers have topped out on the salary scale at 18 years and are ineligible for raises. Those who will get them generally are younger teachers, some of whom will put every dime of the increase toward paying for required continuing education courses. The cost of the increase on the general fund is $1.4 million – less than 1 percent of the general fund budget.

The increases have another unfortunate effect in that legislators capped the amount of money a school district can transfer from capital projects and transportation funds if the district raises any employee salary by more than 2 percent – and some step raises will exceed that threshold. But no one should overlook the fact that it was the same lawmakers who have limited the amount of money available in those funds by capping property taxes.

School board members might find fault in the teacher union’s unwillingness to offer concessions on the incremental raises or on health insurance. FWCS spent almost $40 million on health care coverage last year. Companies everywhere are restructuring health plans to keep costs in line, and so it was not unreasonable to expect teachers to share in efforts to keep costs down, either by picking up a larger share of the premiums or by accepting a plan with a health-savings account.

The teachers themselves can point to significant changes in their rights to placement and assignment. Because of the pressure exerted on the district by Public Law 221, the state’s version of No Child Left Behind, officials must make dramatic changes at schools in their third and fourth years of academic probation, those identified by the district as LEAD schools. To accommodate those changes, teachers agreed to a different hiring process for those schools, one that doesn’t ensure a teacher at a LEAD school will have a job there after restructuring.

The union also agreed to establish three new joint committees. One will monitor the LEAD schools, another will establish new teacher evaluation procedures and a third will study pay and benefits, including health insurance.

One contract challenge shouldn’t be overlooked: the necessity of reaching an agreement in time to meet the mandated reduction-in-force deadline and to handle student school assignments and schedules for next fall. By law, school districts must notify teachers by June 1 if their contracts will not be renewed this fall. That allows little time to make the major staffing changes necessitated by $300 million statewide in school budget cuts ordered by Gov. Mitch Daniels just three months ago, including the likely closing of Elmhurst High School and Pleasant Center Elementary.

The status quo position on salary and benefits might be tough to understand now, but the building pressure on education spending will soon convince everyone that no one can escape the pain of jobs lost, schools closed, benefits cut or programs ended.