The Karns City Education Association accepted some concessions in voting to accept a nonbinding arbitration ruling last Friday.

However, the 120 district teachers have little to be sad about regarding their new five-year contract, which was approved by the school board on Saturday. Plenty of other workers in Butler County, faced with small or no raises — and even some with pay and benefits givebacks — would feel blessed with what the Karns City teachers will receive — including annual average pay hikes of 3.6 percent.

And in the "regular" business world, retroactive pay is the exception rather than the rule. The Karns City pact is retroactive to July 1, 2009.

One of the things that the teachers wanted but will not receive is nine years of district-paid health care after their retirement. The contract provides for eight years of after-retirement district-paid health care — a generous provision nonetheless.

However, the teachers again got away dirt cheap on the issue of contributing toward their health care. Under the contract, teachers will be required to pay $30 a month rather than the $10 required under the previous contract, while many workers in other sectors of the economy contribute much more.

The change is expected to save the district about $22,000 a year. If, under the pact, the teachers were required to contribute $100 a month toward their health care, the district presumably could have saved in excess of $70,000.

A $70,000 savings could have bought many more textbooks than what the anticipated savings will make possible. And, $100 monthly employee health care contributions are not uncommon outside of the public employee sector.

Meanwhile, Karns City teachers who refuse the district's health insurance coverage, in most cases because of coverage under a spouse's policy, will receive $250 monthly rather than $300 — a savings for the district but a benefit that still can be regarded as excessive.

It's often said that the best contract is one about which neither side in the bargaining is totally happy. That is an appropriate assessment regarding the newly approved pact, although the taxpayers are the biggest losers under the new contract.

Thomas Breth, district solicitor, characterized the contract as a "difficult decision for the school board members" because of the uncertainty about its eventual impact on taxes.

It would seem that 3.6 percent pay increases would make a tax increase or increases sometime during the remaining four years of the contract inevitable.

Couple that with projected big increases in school districts' contributions toward teachers' pensions, which are expected in 2012, the recipe for a significantly heavier burden on district taxpayers now is in place.

Having averted a teachers strike during this school year, labor peace is in place through the 2013-14 fiscal year. For that Karns City parents and students can be happy.

Still, residents are likely to ask why, when so many professions must be content with accepting the status quo, this one segment of workers continues to demand and receive special treatment, no matter how tough the times and no matter what pressures it imposes on the people whose taxes pay the district's bills.

It's a fair question, and one that nobody is answering.