For the Karns City School District it's good news that the school board and teachers union are getting closer to agreement on a new contract. The district's 123 teachers have set a strike date of Sept. 1, the first scheduled day of classes, if the two sides fail to achieve an accord by that time.

An article in Wednesday's Butler Eagle provided district taxpayers with a glimpse of what the new pact would entail, if neither side reneges on agreed-upon provisions that have been hammered out.

But between now and formal contract ratification votes by the board and teachers, after final details of the new contract are worked out — early retirement incentives are said to be the remaining sticking point — the taxpayers deserve two important pieces of information. They are the total cost of the contract and the projected real estate tax millage increases that the contract will precipitate.

The two sides are reported to have agreed upon annual 3.6 percent pay increases for the five years of the proposed contract, well above the current rate of inflation; a substantial increase in the starting pay for new teachers; and, despite the $12,420-per-year cost to the district for husband and wife health care coverage, a requirement for the teachers to contribute only $30 a month toward that coverage, up from the $10 a month they paid under the contract that expired on June 30, 2009.

And it's that minimal contribution towards health care coverage that has many taxpayers — most of whom contribute much more for their health coverage — thinking about fairness, not just the dollar cost of teacher contracts.

The teachers worked under provisions of the expired contract during the 2009-10 school year and will receive a retroactive pay increase for that year once a new pact is ratified.

Judging from the remaining unsettled provisions, it would seem that a contract agreement is achievable to avert a strike. Both sides should be open to compromise to complete the contract task.

However, the taxpayers deserve a complete explanation of what has been agreed upon, to enable them to express their opinions to board members — whether or not, in the end, those viewpoints have any effect when the vote on the contract takes place.

From the taxpayers' vantage point, the most important information is how the contract will affect their real estate tax bills over the course of the agreement. In too many instances, school boards reveal that information only after they have voted to lay an additional burden on the taxpayers by way of their contract ratification vote.

The Karns City board should opt for the correct information sequence — before the contract is a done deal.

District taxpayers don't deserve rude surprises like so many taxpayers in other districts receive.