Gloria Wright / The Post-StandardLiverpool school board members recently approved a three-year contract that calls for raises of 3.65 percent , 2.15 percent and 2.0 percent. Board members a week earlier had rejected a one-year contract with a 3.65 percent salary increase. Here board members Donald Cook (left) and Richard Pento confer during a board meeting. The secret contract Want to know what’s in a proposed contract? You can’t. Districts don’t release any details of a contract until after it’s approved by the school board and the teachers. Critics say that’s wrong, the public needs input. Union, school district officials say making a contract public wouldn’t work. The story. The cost of living has decreased in the last year. The median pay in Central New York has dropped. Thousands of people across the region have had mandatory unpaid time off and increases in health care costs. Nearly 29,000 others have lost their jobs and many employees have lost their health insurance. Yet, the 10 school districts in the area that settled contracts in the year or so since the recession hit have awarded annual raises to teachers and staff that — with one exception — range from 3.5 to 4 percent, according to a review by The Post-Standard. The average annual pay raise is 3.69 percent. Syracuse, the biggest district in the area, awarded its teachers 4 percent raises for four years: a nearly 17 percent increase in pay. The pay increases come on salaries that start at about $41,000 and in some cases can reach $100,000 for a longtime teacher, according to district contracts and payrolls. The median salary in Central New York is $53,410…

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