WEST GREENWICH — The Exeter-West Greenwich School Committee last night ratified a four-year contract package with the teachers union, retroactive to last Aug. 31, that includes a redesigned health care package and provides pay increases totaling about 12 percent over the life of the agreement for top-scale teachers.

The vote to approve the one-year retroactive agreement coupled with a three-year contract that expires in August 2011 was 6 to 1, with William Munroe dissenting. Munroe said he had no qualms with the major terms of the agreement but objected to a clause pertaining to domestic partner benefits because, he noted, Rhode Island law does not recognize same-sex marriages.

As soon as the vote was taken, in closed session, Chairwoman Susan De Sack phoned Maureeen Pontarelli, president of the 210-member Exeter-West Greenwich Education Association, that the agreement had been ratified. The union’s rank and file ratified the agreement last Thursday, four days after a tentative accord was hammered out at the bargaining table.

Classes begin today for the regional district’s 2,000 students.

“We will be signing the contract together hopefully by the end of this week. At that point we will publicly comment on the process,” De Sack said.

The retroactive one-year contract provides a 2.75 percent pay increase for top-step teachers. The three-year contract that takes effect Monday provides 3 percent raises each year for those teachers.

Unlike the previous contract, the new agreement does not stipulate that a certain health care insurer be used. It gives the School Committee flexibility to switch carriers to get a better rate, but the coverage must be comparable, said board lawyer Vincent Ragosta.

The agreement requires that the teachers pay a greater share of the cost of their insurance coverage. It will rise from 6 percent of the premium to 10 percent for the contract year about to end; to 12 percent next year, 15 percent in the year after that and 18 percent in the final year.

Employees will be given the option of enrolling in high-deductible health care plans and health savings accounts [HSA] to save money.

lsparks@projo.com