Cayuga Community College faculty members may soon be working under a new contract.

College President Daniel Larson said the college and its faculty members have worked through an impasse to agree on a tentative contract for faculty members.

The faculty association, the college board of trustees and the county Legislature all need to ratify the proposed contract before the terms are released, Larson said. Ratification on the college side should occur by the end of April, with the proposal reaching the Legislature's floor a month or two thereafter.

College faculty have been operating without a contract since 2004 and internal efforts to negotiate a new contract had ended in an impasse. To break the stalemate, both parties turned to the state Public Employment Relations Board to have an impartial arbitrator mediate a solution that might lead to a contractual agreement.

A major cause of friction between the college and the association was employee contributions to health insurance premiums.

"I think that both teams recognize that they did what they thought was possible for the parties they represent," Larson said. "That give-and-take kind of negotiating process means that ultimately we came up with an agreement. I think that as the ratification process proceeds, with the members of the faculty association and the board of trustees and at the county level, we will see exactly how much agreement might be there."

Faculty association President Agnes Crothers was not immediately available for comment.

For more on this story, read Tuesday's edition of The Citizen.