RACINE - Belle Urban System buses will be back on their regular routes today, just 24 hours after the system shut down Monday for a strike.

Drivers and other BUS workers walked away from their jobs just after 4 a.m. Monday and picketed throughout the day about failed contract negotiations between their union, Teamsters Local 43, and the bus management company, Professional Transit Management.

BUS workers were able to strike because they are contracted with Professional Transit Management and not directly with the city. Unions contracted directly with the city are not allowed to strike.

But the strike ended before the day was done. Mayor Gary Becker met with union officials and the management company for 4½ hours Monday afternoon, and the two sides were able to reach a tentative agreement.

Now it's up to the union members to approve the new contract, said Teamsters Local 43 President Wes Gable. The members will vote on the contract at 8 p.m. Sunday at a private meeting, Gable said. They had been working without a contract since July 1.

The tentative new agreement includes compromises from both sides.

If the new, two-year contract is approved, BUS workers will receive a 1.75 percent annual pay increase for this year and next, and their retirement health costs will be covered under private insurance rather than the BUS workers' group plan, said Curtis Garner, executive director of Professional Transit

Management.

That move alone will save the city an estimated $250,000 in the first year of the contract, Becker and Garner said Monday.

The pay increase will be difficult to manage, Garner said, and means BUS may need to cut some services. Racine County is currently in the middle of a county-wide transportation development plan that will help determine where those cuts will be made, Garner said.

The pay increase will cost the city, but the change in retirement health coverage will help save some money, Garner said.

The change in insurance carriers will not affect retired workers significantly, Garner said, because the management company will reimburse most out-of-pocket expenses so that the new cost for retirees is equal to the old cost. Gable said Monday night that he would not comment on the specific terms of the new negotiation until the union votes on it.

The management company typically works with the transit planner in City Hall. But the transit planner, Kathy Casper, stepped down from the position in mid-July, Garner said, and the city is looking for a replacement.

Garner's plan to convert payroll clerks and dispatchers into nonunion positions also was a contentious issue. In the tentative agreement reached Monday, payroll jobs will be transferred to management, but dispatchers will remain union employees, Garner and Becker said.

Having existing management take over payroll will save approximately $60,000, according to a written summary of Garner's final offer.

Garner also wanted dispatcher jobs to be made into management positions, but the newly proposed contract does not include that, he said. That is the part of the new negotiation about which Garner said he is most disappointed.

Dispatchers should be able to discipline drivers when they receive complaints, Garner said.

"(Instead) there is no accountability because essentially they are ratting out a fellow union member," he said, adding that changing the position to management would not have meant a loss of seniority or benefits. Also, he said, no one would have lost his or her job because someone would have likely moved up internally.

On Monday morning, Garner had said he would not compromise. PTM made its final contract offer Tuesday and he said they were going to stick with it.

"We're going to wait and see if they are going to come back to work," Garner said at about 9 a.m. "Our offer is final. We'll see how long they can afford to stay out of work."

But by the end of the day, an agreement had been tentatively reached.

Gable said if the union does not approve the new contract, the management company, union and mayor will meet again before any further action is taken.

Pete Wicklund contributed to this report.