COLDWATER (WTVB) - The Branch Intermediate School District Board of Education has ratified a new contract for the district’s early education employees. About 50 union workers are covered by the retroactive one year agreement for the current school year.

The employees are paid for with a combination of federal funds and grants and regular Head Start funding and stimulus money aimed at Head Start specifically for increasing salaries. It all adds up to a 4.9% increase.

And the B-I-S-D board also announced yesterday that the Branch Area Careers Center building project house, which has been on the market since last June, has been sold with a purchase agreement price of $158,000.