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Gov. Neil Abercrombie says the state and teachers union have reached an agreement on a new contract, but the union’s board of directors hasn’t taken it to members for their approval.

Teachers have been working since July 2011 under a contract the governor unilaterally imposed. It includes higher health care premiums and a 5 percent cut in wages.

Negotiations have stutter-stepped for the past two years, with settlement offers being proposed and turned down on both sides. 

If a new contract agreement can’t be reached with the Hawaii State Teachers Association soon, it looks like teachers can expect to continue working under another “last, best, final offer.”

“A statewide contract has not been able to be achieved. We achieved it at the negotiating level, but we have not been able to get the board of the union to get it out to their membership,” Abercrombie said Sunday at the ’s winter meeting in Washington, D.C. “If push comes to shove, then we’ll have to continue to impose the contract and take it up at that point.”

The latest contract offers have included a restoration of the 5 percent cut in wages and a plan for regular raises, but there’s been discord over the proposed teacher evaluation system and how big those raises should be.

The governor faults union leaders, and HSTA President Wil Okabe blames the state for the lack of progress.

Last week, Okabe and Board of Education member Jim Williams, part of the state negotiating team, traded barbs through opinion pieces posted online. Both said negotiations are ongoing. Both said the other side was purporting myths and inaccurate statements.

Meanwhile, time is running out for a new contract agreement to be cemented for the coming biennium.

HSTA said in its Tuesday that the union has entered a critical phase in its effort to negotiate a fair contract settlement with the state.

In order to fund an agreement for 2013-2015, HSTA must achieve an acceptable tentative agreement for members to ratify by April 26, the bulletin says. That is the deadline by which all funding bills must be in position for the Legislature to act on.

“The question here is whether you have institutional inertia that — particularly in a collective bargaining context — can not get to some of the bigger issues of principle that have been annunciated here today,” Abercrombie said Sunday.

The winter meeting covered topics such as evaluations, policy reforms, hiring standards and teacher pay.

Abercrombie said the teachers and students have bought into the new policies being implemented throughout the state, including the new teacher evaluation system tied to student growth that’s being piloted in dozens of schools. But he said the union leadership has fought the department “tooth and nail” all along the way.

Some teachers say they don’t know where the governor is getting his information about the groundswell of support for the new policies and programs. They say the governor’s statements last weekend about imposing another contract just make them feel like a strike is unavoidable.

The teachers can’t strike, however, until the Hawaii Labor Relations Board rules on the complaint the union lodged after the governor imposed the current contract. The case wrapped up in May, but the two board members who presided over it have yet to issue a decision.

A bill moving through the Legislature this session seeks to impose a limit on how long the labor board can take to rule on a case. The House Finance Committee will hear Wednesday.

Okabe, Board of Education Chair Don Horner and the governor’s spokesperson did not immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday.

Hawaii Department of Education spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said the department does not comment on contract negotiations.

Watch Abercrombie discuss education during the NGA meeting by clicking .