Teachers in the Mars School District — and any other district — have a right to negotiate a contract in their maximum best interests. Act 195, the public employees bargaining act, gave them that right in 1970.

But within that context, the public has a right to know the full economic impact of contract proposals on which elected school board members are engaged in talks, with a district's professional staff or any other bargaining unit. Unfortunately, in Mars, for whatever reason, they haven't been getting it, despite the amount of time the contract dispute has remained unresolved.

The taxpayers have been given numbers, but those numbers have not been adequately explained within the context of a public meeting.

Neither have those numbers been clearly explained when other county school districts have negotiated — and prepared to vote on — new pacts in recent years. Taxpayers have been shortchanged in that regard, while left to pay the bill.

That is not to imply that recently negotiated contracts in the county's school districts have necessarily been too generous or bad. That's for taxpayers in each school system to evaluate.

But in order to do that, taxpayers must have complete information on which to base their opinions and conclusions.

In Mars' case, the taxpayers have been told that the district has been offering the 188 teachers a $1,700 raise for each year of a five-year contract, retroactive to June 2006. The taxpayers also have been told that the teachers have been seeking a $2,296 raise the first year plus raises in each of the remaining four years, with the final-year raise being $2,765.

The taxpayers also have learned by way of an article in Friday's Butler Eagle that the teachers sought bigger raises in the fact-finding process than they did in the negotiations, with a teachers union officer refusing to disclose why.

During the course of negotiations earlier this year, the Mars School Board revealed that the teachers' contract proposal would cost the district's taxpayers nearly $7 million over the five-year term of the contract. The board listed the cost of its proposal as $4.8 million.

But neither the board's negotiators nor the school board have fully explained reasons for the big difference in the price of the respective total packages being presented, and much of the haziness has revolved around the pay issue.

Mars teachers have been working under terms of their previous contract, which expired on June 20, 2006.

Both the Mars Area Education Association and the school board are scheduled to vote on a fact-finder's report today. Under rules governing the fact-finding process, district taxpayers won't find out the details of the fact-finder's recommendation until sometime after the two sides' votes to either accept or reject the fact-finder recommendations.

Until now, school board meetings have avoided the cumulative impact of the pay raises that the district and teachers have proposed. That's the total impact of the raises at the end of the five-year term of the proposed contract.

Board meetings have indicated that the district's offer would mean an additional $8,500 over five years for each teacher, while the teachers were seeking raises totaling about $12,600.

Those numbers aren't inaccurate, but they don't provide the full picture.

In fact, the district's offer would result in $25,500 in new money, before taxes and other deductions, for each teacher over the five-year contract term, since each year's raise carries over to the next.

Meanwhile, the teachers' proposal during negotiations — $2,296 in Year 1, $2,405 in Year 2, $2,519 in Year 3, $2,639 in Year 4, and $2,765 in Year 5 — would result in $36,700 in new money for each teacher during the term of the contract.

Under fact-finding, the teachers sought a $2,390 raise in Year 1, $2,504 in Year 2, $2,623 in Year 3, $2,748 in Year 4, and $2,878 in Year 5. That would produce $38,209 in new money.

Therefore, the actual cost gap between what the district has been offering and what the teachers have sought over the course of five years is not a matter of $4,100, as the board meeting dialogue seemed to indicate. Instead, the real pay gap between the offers really was $11,200 during the negotiations; the gap increased to $12,709 as a result of the pay-increase proposal that the teachers submitted to the fact-finder.

In fact-finding, the teachers sought an additional $1,509 for each teacher over what they asked for in the regular negotiations.

What the Mars teachers are seeking isn't necessarily excessive in the education sector. In recent years, teachers across the commonwealth have continued to get raises well in excess of hikes in the cost of living.

However, taxpayers who pay the salaries have a right to make that judgment and express their opinions to school board members, before a final vote on a pact takes place.

The Mars board has been remiss in not putting all of the facts on the table for taxpayers to see. Meanwhile, the Mars Education Association officer who refused to comment on the higher fact-finding pay request did not advance the union's cause, regardless of today's outcome.

Perhaps the contract dispute will be settled today by way of a mutually acceptable recommendation put forth by the fact-finder. But that wouldn't forgive school board members for not putting the full financial picture before taxpayers.

Putting all of the facts on the table for all to see — as well as an interpretation of those facts — should always be regarded as the best policy.