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Even in the face of a souring economy, many Long Island school districts have approved hefty raises for teachers that soon will push salaries to more than $140,000 a year for the highest earners.

A Newsday review of 10 new teacher contracts -- all signed after experts began warning late in 2007 of looming financial troubles -- finds typical raises for the coming school year of more than 6 percent. Surpassing that, many individual teachers are due increases of better than 7 percent or 8 percent.

The raises come even as teachers unions and school districts pushed for the federal stimulus package, saying it was needed to prevent classroom layoffs.

The raises also come as anger builds over the Island's high property taxes. School costs account for about 66 percent of property taxes; salaries and benefits for the Island's 42,500 full-time teachers and other school professionals make up 56 percent of those costs.

As the recession deepens, some other local public employees face layoffs or requests for givebacks -- a prospect facing some teacher unions as well.

Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi has asked unions that represent the majority of county workers to take a 7 percent across-the-board pay cut or face up to 1,000 layoffs. Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy has called for $30 million in concessions from his workers.

Two increases

Raises in the most recent teacher contracts include both contractual increases -- typically 3 percent to 3.5 percent a year -- and automatic annual increases based on years of service that are already built into the salary stepladder .

Within three to four years, top pay for the most senior teachers will rise to $140,090 in the North Shore district, $142,900 in Cold Spring Harbor and $145,060 in Mount Sinai.

"You have a situation where people's homes have lost 18 or 20 percent of value, they're worried about keeping their jobs, and they see teachers getting pay raises of 5, 6 or 7 percent," said Edmund J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a conservative Albany think tank.

In some districts, the latest raises are offset to an extent by union concessions in other areas, officials say.

Cold Spring Harbor, for example, signed a new six-year contract in October, under which salary scales will rise slightly more than 6 percent annually, district officials say. In turn, teachers' contributions to health-care costs will rise gradually, from 10 percent to 16 percent while they're working, and from zero to 15 percent after retirement.

While the Cold Spring Harbor provision is in line with what teachers elsewhere are paying, it's far less than the 27 percent of health care costs paid by the average American worker, as reported in a national study late last year by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"It was really what the board considered to be a critical concession," said Judith Wilansky, the district superintendent.

Port Jefferson's latest contract raises average pay scales well over 6 percent, Deputy Schools Superintendent Maria Rianna said. She added, however, that the contract also specifies for the first time that teachers stay after school two days a week to help students with academic assignments.

"The board was focused on making sure students would benefit from the contract," Rianna said.

Teacher representatives also note that negotiations on many of the latest contracts were well under way before the extent of the current economic crisis became apparent.

"We had absolutely no idea, nor did the school board, of an impending crisis," said Mitchell Wolman, president of Mount Sinai's teacher union. That district signed a contract last June, but Wolman said the details had been worked out the year before.

Taxpayer advocates contend, nonetheless, that such contracts should never have been signed without greater concessions.

In an effort to underscore the pay issue, McMahon's Empire Center recently posted contracts for teachers and superintendents in more than 700 districts statewide on its Web site: www.seethroughny.net.

All contracts reviewed by Newsday were signed after November 2007, when state officials began warning of the need for belt tightening, citing the weakening economy. Eight were signed after May 2008, and four in the final quarter of the year.

A representative of the state teachers union said his organization knew of no other Long Island contracts signed after November 2007.

Newsday reviewed new contracts from Cold Spring Harbor, Commack, Copiague, Fishers Island, Island Park, Mount Sinai, North Shore, Oysterponds, Port Jefferson and Three Village.

North Shore's contract grants slightly higher contractual increases than did the prior agreement. Of the seven other districts where new contracts could be compared to old ones, three were essentially unchanged. The other four were slightly lower.

McMahon and other critics say it's inappropriate for school employees to take big raises while schools seek government bailouts to prevent layoffs. Congress recently approved a $787-billion stimulus package that includes more than $50 billion for schools, much of which will go to teacher salaries.

Influential teachers union

New York State United Teachers, an influential union and one of the state's biggest political donors, is pushing for additional school money to be raised through a state income tax hike on high earners.

Richard Iannuzzi, the union's president, says he understands the resentment by workers in other sectors who experience layoffs and wonder why teachers should rate special help.

"The answer is that, to create what we need to turn the economy around, we need to invest in education," said Iannuzzi, a former Central Islip teacher.

The Island's teacher unions as a whole have consistently obtained some of the nation's highest pay contracts, Newsday has found in past reviews.

Central Islip's contract, signed five years ago, runs through the 2014-15 school year. By then, its top earners will be paid $173,840.

Teachers, of course, are not the only well-paid public employees. Nassau police officers, for example, earn $103,973 after eight years. In Suffolk, top scale is $97,950.

But there are 3,600 county police officers in Suffolk and Nassau combined. In contrast, the region has 42,500 full-time teachers, guidance counselors and other professionals covered by teacher contracts.

The median salary for school professionals was $77,290 in 2007, according to the state tax-relief commission. That same year, workers for other local government agencies averaged $58,790 in Suffolk and $63,320 in Nassau, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A further advantage for teachers is that their higher wages are for a 10-month academic year. That leaves two months free for summer vacation, or for earning additional income from another job.

Some public employees also have recently received sizable raises. Last week, Suffolk correction officers received an 8.1 percent salary increase over two years that will raise a top officer with five years' experience to $65,441. But that union had not received a raise in six years.

Local school authorities say that, far from being outraged by high teacher salaries, many parents expect pay scales to keep pace with those in other districts, in order to attract skilled teachers.

"It's important to remain competitive," said Amy Beyer, board president of the North Shore system, which serves Sea Cliff, Glen Head and Glenwood Landing.

School and union representatives also note teachers must work 15 to 30 years to reach top scale, depending on the district, and that many teachers at that level would get subsequent raises of only 3 percent or so, unless they qualified for additional increases known as "longevity" raises, or for incentive payments for earning extra college credits.

Regional patterns prevail

Local officials add that contract raises are based largely on regional patterns, making it difficult, if not impossible, for individual districts to establish salary schedules much different from those in neighboring systems. They further contend their powers to negotiate are restricted by the so-called Triborough provision in state labor law, which guarantees teachers and other public employees can continue collecting those incremental "step" raises, even when contracts have expired and are being renegotiated.

Taxpayer representatives agree districts are at a disadvantage, though they add that a few have been more successful than most in curbing costs.

"Certainly, to use a military analogy, they're charging uphill," said Graham Kerby, a resident of the Three Village district and civic activist. "But you have to take a tough line."

Some teachers already are feeling the heat. Last week, North Babylon told 36 teachers that they face layoffs in June. Superintendent Robert Aloise said the move was prompted by falling enrollments.

In Islip, Superintendent Susan Schnebel met recently with more than 200 teachers and other workers to deliver a sobering message: Islip faces at least two years of tight budgets, despite promises of federal stimulus money, and staff reductions are likely.

Schnebel said she welcomed staffers' suggestions for saving money and promised that any layoffs would include administrators. "Everybody would be taking a fair share," she said.

In December, a state commission headed by Suozzi made several recommendations aimed at giving school districts a stronger hand in negotiations with unions.

One was to eliminate the Triborough provision. Another was to allow negotiations on a statewide or regional basis, in hopes of preventing unions from playing one local district off against another.

Gov. David A. Paterson has voiced general support for the recommendations, but experts say the Triborough proposal has little prospect of passage in the State Legislature. Some analysts and politicians think the concept of regional bargaining has at least a small chance of adoption, because it doesn't directly challenge unions.