GLOVERSVILLE - The president of the Gloversville Teachers Association said Friday teachers are concerned about job cuts, and the union hopes the Gloversville Enlarged School District Board of Education will be open to "creative solutions" to help save jobs.

The Board of Education this week passed a $50.7 million budget that officials said will eliminate 34 full-time teacher jobs and 16 non-instructional positions.

GTA President Pat Donovan said the cuts actually affect 38 full-time teachers, six of whom were temporary or substitute teachers. Four of the teachers laid off have tenure, and seven were to receive tenure over the summer, she said. One was very close to retirement, she said.

"We feel it's important [for the public] to know," she said.

Donovan said she thinks media reports have cast the union in a bad light, and despite not wanting to discuss contract negotiations, the teachers felt it was important to "set the record straight."

"We are not the bad guys," she said. "We pay those school taxes."

Donovan said assertions by district officials that the teachers refused to switch to a different health insurance plan, thus forcing the district to lay off teachers, is inaccurate.

All district employees, including members of the GTA, were told by district officials weeks ago that massive staff cuts could be partially avoided if the district's approximately 600 employees agreed to switch health insurance plans, Superintendent Robert DeLilli has said.

The teachers' contract expires at the end of the school year. About half of the district's employees are teachers, but all others, including aides, food service staff and building and grounds staff, also are unionized.

Donovan said district officials' attitude regarding the switch was, "take it or leave it."

"To say [the health insurance switch] is this little change [from the existing plan] is far from the truth," she said.

The plan proposed would have severely cut the teachers' benefits and would have harmed many of the teachers, she said.

"It might have been fine for young people who don't take any medicine or go to the doctor," she said. "It would have tremendously harmed other people. It would have not only eaten up any potential raise, it would have dug deep into the salaries [teachers] make already."

DeLilli said district officials never intended for the health insurance switch to seem like an ultimatum.

"It was just an idea. We faced a multimillion-dollar shortfall, and one idea was to, in one districtwide sweep, take care of it by folks switching to a different health plan," he said. "We said, 'this is our problem, and this is an idea to solve it.'"

Most district employees declined to switch, DeLilli said.

Last year, teachers agreed to pay 4 percent more for health insurance, DeLilli said, a change that saved the district money.

DeLilli acknowledged Gloversville teachers pay more than some other districts' teachers for health insurance, but other districts will be forced to increase teacher contributions in the near future.

"There are other schools that will move to that as soon as they can," he said. "Health insurance is bankrupting school districts."

Donovan said the district's teachers often go above and beyond their job duties and have various events throughout the year to give back to the community, including a Rail Trail cleanup, food drives, clothing giveaways and free gift-wrapping over the holidays.

Donovan said she hopes the Board of Education is receptive to ideas the GTA has to cut costs and avoid large-scale layoffs. She declined to name any specific ideas, saying it would be improper given that contract negotiations are still under way.

Kayleigh Karutis covers Gloversville news. She can be reached by e-mail at gloversville@leaderherald.com.