The Bedford school district’s new three-year teachers contract, which the Board of Education is expected to approve Wednesday, does not do away with automatic salary increases after all, The Journal News has learned.

New teachers will not be eligible for “steps and lanes,” a measure that guarantees pay increases even after a collective bargaining agreement has expired, but will have guaranteed annual raises of 1.75 percent beyond the three-year life of the pact.

“It guarantees a minimum 1.75 percent yearly increase in perpetuity in exchange for getting rid of the step schedule,” said Adam Yuro, president of the 450-member Bedford Teachers Association. “If the economy improves or the tax cap is overturned, we would be able to go back and negotiate a higher increase.”

It also raises the starting salary from $60,000 to $69,500 a year.

On Aug. 8, the district, in announcing that a tentative agreement had been reached, said that “steps and lanes” would not be offered to teachers hired after July 1, 2013. Instead, it said, a “new compensation framework” would be implemented.

Policy experts at the Empire Center, a nonprofit think tank based in Albany that keeps track of public spending, who in August hailed the decision, said they were “disappointed” with the 1.75 percent perpetual raise.

“They put out a release saying they are getting rid of the step increases but neglected to say they were putting something else in its place,” said Tim Hoefer, the center’s executive director.

While yearly salary increases normally expire with each contract, the “steps and lanes” — rewards for longevity and gaining academic  credits — are protected under state law.

Asked why the school board would agree to a provision for perpetual raises, President Susan Elion Wollin said it was “premature” to discuss the issue before the board discussed and voted on the agreement.

The union president defended the pact.

“If we don’t offer this, we will not be able to attract the best and the brightest teachers to our district,” Yuro said.

Mamaroneck teachers agreed to a step-and-lane pay freeze for a year with a two-year wage freeze in their new contract; East Ramapo teachers agreed to delay some step raises, though they’ll still receive cost-of-living increases on their base salaries.

Ann Borsellino, the president of the Mamaroneck Teachers’ Association, said she couldn’t comment on the new model in the Bedford contract without having had a chance to look at it. She said Yuro was planning to make a presentation to a select group of union presidents on Thursday.

For the teachers covered under the old compensation model, there will be no across-the-board salary increases, and an additional step will be added to the salary schedule to “slow the trajectory of increases,” said Yuro.

Teachers at top of the step schedule will receive $750 in the first two years and $1,750 in the third year.

The fact that details of collective bargaining agreements with public-employee unions are kept secret until it is too late for them to be debated or altered is what needs to be changed for real reform, according to policy experts at the Empire Center.

Hoeffer said Bedford’s commitment to a 1.75 percent increase inperpetuity for new teachers did not seem wise, given that, in the 2013-14 budget cycle, more than 50 districts in the state had a tax-levy limit less than 2 percent.

“They are guaranteeing a raise into perpetuity with economic conditions that they cannot predict,” said Hoefer. “This could go on for 25 years.”