thousands of Rutgers University union members are starting the week with a new contract the overwhelming majority of Educators researchers and clinicians voted today to ratify the agreements bringing to a close roughly a year of tense negotiations capped by a historic week-long strike at the state's Flagship School senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan has the story we're here to talk about a historic contract it's official with a 93 percent vote three Rutgers faculty unions overwhelmingly ratified their new contracts deals reached by launching an unprecedented week-long strike against the university after more than 10 months of failed negotiations the agreements include significant salary increases and job security for almost nine thousand union members it's important and it's critical and transformative in that we took a step forward in fighting for longer contracts for adjunct faculty for better and not enough but for decent pay for our grad workers we've taken the fight to management and we've been on the offensive and so that's the first time or one of the first times this has happened in the country and that needs to be noted union leaders also credited Governor Murphy for his Crisis Intervention that broke a bitter gridlock and brought all sides to negotiated his offices in Trenton the governor promised State funding to help support an agreement the big question now who will pay for the Rutgers Union settlement and how much arose during today's assembly budget hearings but Rutgers President John Holloway said he's not yet sure you can't just sign an open-ended agreement without knowing what a bottom line cost is going to be it's just you know negotiations one-on-one the actual dollar amount of tied to a percentage increase is is a lot more complicated when you have a rapidly changing Workforce particularly with the largest increases I think at 43 percent for our part-time lectures because that head count changes every semester so I want to give you precise answers I don't think you'd be doing my job to give you um ballparks Holloway asked for more time to get that data he did say Rutgers faces 125 million dollar deficit it's asked some administrative offices to make 10 spending cuts saving 25 million dollars a year Holloway wouldn't predict contract costs can you tell me whether it's going to involve perhaps a tuition increase that is premature the Board of Governors is the governing body at Rutgers that makes that decision how I offered no specifics but this contract sets a precedent other schools could soon ask the state for more funding to support their contract negotiations and that worries lawmakers due to the inflationary pressures and reported framework of the records contract we expect the next contract to be costly without additional State support most institutions will have no choice but to increase tuition well beyond the normal two percent that leaves the door open for many others and it's just we're getting to the point where there also has to be some honest disclosures as well as to what we're going to be doing with some of our higher ed institutions as we move forward lawmakers wanted to know whether in exchange for extra state aid colleges and universities would permit greater oversight of their budget processes if there was a significant infusion in operational Aid some of most of them would be willing to trade off a little more accountability in order to receive that kind of state Investments the assembly budget chairwoman said she's willing to wait for hard numbers from Rutgers but she pointed to the state's deadline and said she expects president Holloway to get them that information without delay at the State House Annex in Trenton I'm Brenda Flanagan NJ Spotlight news