Ruling Hits Terminal Pay By Schools

As a residí of Michigan Atty. Gen. Frank Kelley's recent opinión that terminal leave pay is illegal, the Ann Arbor Board of Education will apparently cease all such payments to Ann Arbor teachers immediately. The school board met last night in executive session with its legal counsel, Roscoe O. Bonisteel Jr., who advised the trustees of the Oct. 11 opinión. Terminal leave pay is a sum of money granted to teachers or their beneficiaries upon retirement or death who have been employed by the school system for a minimum of five consecutive years. The amount paid is the equivalent of one per cent of the teacher's highest regular basic contractual salary times the number of full-time equivalent years employed. The terminal leave pay item. is a provisión oi the 1968-70 contract between the Ann Arbor Education Association and the Ann Arbor Board of Education. A severance clause in the master agreement states, however, that if any provisions of the contract are found to be contrary to law, "then such provisión or application shall not be deemed valid and subsistent except to the extent permitted by law . . ." School Board President Joseph R. Julin commented this morning that the severance clause "relieves the board of any obligation" to fulfill contractual provisions judged to be illegal. "The Board of Education will not authorize any payments prohibited by law," Julin said. The trustees directed Bonisteel to inform the AAEA of the legal opinión. Meetings between school board and AAEA representatives will probably be set up to work out a solution to the problem. Unless the AAEA or another teacher's associa! tion in the state challenges Kelley's opinión in the courts, however, it appears terminal leave pay will I be stopped.