Nearly three months into the budget year, the Nampa School District has a tentative agreement on a 2015-16 labor agreement.

It took a meeting Tuesday with a mediator — and an agreement to step back from the complicated state “career ladder” designed to boost teacher pay.

Instead, additional money for teacher pay will be put back into the district’s old salary schedule. Every spot on the salary schedule will get a 2.75 percent increase. Starting teacher pay will go up to $32,700 — the new minimum salary set by the career ladder law.

The 2015 Legislature passed the complicated career ladder, and put in the first $33.5 million into a plan expected to cost $125.5 million over five years. Still, it’s up to local districts to decide whether to adopt the career ladder, and some districts have decided to take an extra year to sort out the details.

“While it was our strong desire to align our compensation system to mirror the career ladder, as the teams dug into the details of implementing the ladder we agreed that more study and work was needed to change,” Superintendent David Peterson said in an email to district staff Wednesday. “Our goal is to work together this year on implementing the ladder in 2016-17.”

The Nampa Education Association is slated to vote on the agreement Tuesday, with a school board vote scheduled for Oct. 13.

More reading: For an in-depth look at salary gaps across the state, click here.