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• Ellsworth School Board reaches contract settlement with teachers
• Accident claims life of elderly Spring Valley man
• Pierce County Scoreboard

By Bill Kirk, RiverTown Staff

A two-year contract settlement has been reached by the Ellsworth School District with the local teachers union. Both the school board and the union membership acted to approve the pact last week.

The total package settlement calls for a 4.4 percent increase in salaries and benefits for the 2007-08 school year and a 4.3 percent increase for the 2008-09 year, according to Superintendent Dan Kaler.

The range in salaries shows $31,492 for a starting teacher to $59,760 for a teacher at the top of the pay schedule, with 15 years of experience plus 12 credits beyond the masters degree, Kaler said Thursday.

Some retroactive pay will be necessary, as the two-year settlement applies to the period from July of last year to June 30, 2009, he said. Negotiations between the board's negotiating committee, joined by the superintendent and curriculum/instruction director, and a four-member group from the local teachers union began last August. Around the time of the school's winter break, a mediator from the Wisconsin Employee Relations Commission became involved.

"There was a little bit of a compromise," Kaler said about the outcome of the mediator's involvement, noting Ellsworth's is the lowest settlement among Middle Border Conference schools.

Get more in the May 28 print edition of the Pierce County Herald.

By Brady Bautch, RiverTown Staff

An elderly Spring Valley man died and his wife was injured in a one-vehicle crash along Highway 29 outside of Spring Valley Wednesday afternoon.

According to Lt. Jeff Klatt of the St. Croix County Sheriff's Department, the accident happened at around 3:35 p.m. about a tenth of a mile northeast of the Pierce-St. Croix County line.

Klatt said that Peter DeGross, 72, was driving a 2005 Buick Rendezvous westbound on Highway 29 when the vehicle crossed the centerline, entered the ditch on the north side of the road and then struck a cement culvert.

Yvonne DeGross, 73, was transported from the scene by the Spring Valley Ambulance Service to Red Cedar Medical Center in Menomonie. It is the policy of the hospital not to release patient information.

The crash occurred in front of J Power Choring Equipment, just east of 890th Street in the Town of Cady.

Deputies from the St. Croix County Sheriff's Department and officers from the Spring Valley Police Department closed down Highway 29 to traffic and rerouted it along 890th for several hours following the crash.

Klatt said this was the third fatal accident in St. Croix County this year and it remains under investigation.

Wednesday. May 28

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WIAA Regional Semifinals

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