An alternative offer for teachers proposed by a Seneca Valley school board member is drawing the ire of union officials offended by a reference to "useless, incompetent, deadwood teachers."

The offer, made by board member Paul Adametz, was sent via e-mail to his fellow school board members, two administrators and the lead negotiator for the district, Tom King, more than a month ago.

Somehow, it ended up in the hands of teachers, who posted it on their Web site, www.svteachers.com, yesterday.

In the offer, Mr. Adametz suggests the board consider a "revenue neutral increase" of 5 percent annual raises. Mr. King has previously stated that a 4 percent annual increase is the board's "best and final offer."

Mr. Adametz said in the proposal that the additional 1 percent would require the elimination of a few positions. He said that would be possible because the district has 250 fewer students than it did several years ago, but "dozens" of new teachers.

The proposal also suggests that in exchange for the 5 percent raise, the board should have the ability to fire, at will, up to 1 percent of the teachers per year without fear of grievances or lawsuits.

"With nearly 600 teachers on staff, there has to be more than a handful of useless, incompetent, deadwood teachers that I wouldn't want anywhere near my kids," Mr. Adametz stated in his proposal.

He also proposed another option, a base raise of 2.5 percent, which would automatically jump to 5 percent when Seneca Valley's state test scores exceed the average test scores of Pine-Richland, North Allegheny, Shaler Area, Moon Area, Hampton and the other districts teachers have compared their salaries with since bargaining began.

"Although these ideas are outside of the box, if the union is truly interested in improving the quality of the educational product they are offering and not just lining their pockets to the fullest extent, these ideas will provide the framework and incentive to do so," Mr. Adametz said in his e-mail.

"Obviously, we're insulted," said Pat Andrekovich, lead negotiator for the union.

"We wanted to let the public know the kind of people who are sitting at the other end of the negotiating table," he said. "This letter is a prime example of what we've been dealing with here."

Mr. Andrekovich declined to say how teachers got the e-mail.

Mr. Adametz said his suggestions are common-sense ideas often used in the business world, and he sees no reason why those same strategies couldn't be applied to teacher bargaining.

He said he made the suggestion after the board announced it was locking in its 4 percent offer and the teachers said they were locking in what the board regards as a 6 percent request.

"Both sides need to open their minds a little bit and ask what we would want in exchange for going above 4 percent or below 6 percent," he said.

Mr. Adametz said board members discussed his ideas, but he declined to comment further on that discussion.