Old Lyme - The Lyme-Old Lyme teachers' and administrators' unions have both agreed to no wage increases in 2012-13, a first in recent memory.

During a Board of Education meeting Wednesday, the board voted to approve the administrators' 2012-15 contract as well as the teachers' one-year wage freeze. The Region 18 Teachers' Association's contract doesn't expire until 2013, but wages for the contract's fourth year were left deliberately undetermined when negotiated, Superintendent Elizabeth Osga said Wednesday.

"Especially in a four-year run, sometimes people can't particularly see what are the trends going to be," she said. "Is something going to happen? And in this case, that was negotiated in the fall of 2008, and that's when things started to unravel."

A new multi-year teachers' contract will be negotiated starting next fall, Osga said.

Freezing wages has become common practice for employers cutting costs to stay afloat in an unstable economy, but it's a first in the Lyme-Old Lyme school system, at least in recent history.

"This isn't highly unusual for the times, but it is new for us," Osga said.

Teachers took a "hard zero," meaning they're also forgoing a step advance in 2012-13. With that comes an agreement to keep the insurance premium cost share and prescription co-pays at current levels.

"It basically is a pause in the escalation of costs across the board," Osga said of the step freeze. "That means everybody lives with the salaries as they exist today. No one is moving anywhere."

Administrators, meanwhile, will see a 2 percent wage increase in 2013-14 and a 2.5 percent increase in 2014-15, according to a news release from the school district. Starting in 2013-14, administrators, whose union is led by Lyme Consolidated School Principal James Cavalieri, will pay more for their share of health-insurance premiums as well as more for health services.

Co-pays for doctors' visits will increase from $25 to $30 and emergency-room visits from $50 to $100, among other things, Osga said.

Osga, who also elected to take a zero increase this fiscal year, said she was pleased with the negotiation process for both contracts, which did not require mediation.

"There's a real recognition and realization that there are some difficult economic times, and that the district would like to hold onto its high-quality programs through the difficult times, and that's only going to happen if people work together," she said.

Osga and union presidents Richard LaVecchia and Pam Russell, both middle school teachers, said in a joint statement Thursday that the school board and teachers "continue to approach negotiations as a collaborative process to address the community's and the teachers' needs."

Knowing now how much the district will have to set aside for wages in 2012-13 will also help with the budgeting process and cushion any increases required to pay for the ongoing high school renovation project, Osga said.

"It's going to keep our salary accounts very stable," she said. "So that is definitely going to help us get through whatever other challenges come, either from loss of revenue or from new debt service for the high school project."

j.cho@theday.com