You asked two questions about differences between laws governing cooperative educational arrangements and regional schools districts. The questions and answers are listed separately below. A fuller description of the laws governing cooperative educational arrangements may be found in OLR Report 2006-R-0616 (copy attached).

Do the statutes governing both regional school districts and cooperative educational arrangements protect the contractual and collective bargaining rights of teachers employed by their individual member towns?

Teachers employed by regional school districts are employed by the regional district, not the district's member towns. By explicitly referring to local and regional boards of education throughout, the state law on employment of teachers gives teachers employed by regional boards of education the exact same employment and collective bargaining rights as teachers employed by local boards of education (CGS Ch. 166).

The law governing cooperative educational arrangements among towns allows the arrangement to be supervised by committee and allows the committee to employ teachers. The cooperative arrangement law specifies that teachers employed by such a committee are subject to the same state laws governing employment of teachers as apply to those employed by local or regional boards of education (CGS § 10-158a). These laws also cover teachers employed by the local boards of education of a cooperative arrangement's member towns.

Do cooperative arrangements receive a 10% bonus reimbursement from the state for school construction projects that is not available to regional school districts?

No. Both regional school districts and cooperative arrangements are eligible for state school construction grants that reimburse them for the eligible costs of school construction on a sliding scale of between 20% and 80% depending on the wealth of their member towns. In addition to their regular percentage reimbursement, regional school districts and cooperative arrangements are both eligible for a 10-percentage-point bonus up to a maximum reimbursement of 85% (CGS § 10-285a (c) and (d)).

JL: dw