DANVILLE — The Vermilion County board approved two new union agreements Tuesday night that grant modest wage increases to about 70 county workers.

The two bargaining units, Teamsters Local 26 representing 11 workers at the Vermilion County Highway Department and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 21 representing 59 workers in various departments at the Vermilion County Courthouse, had already approved the agreements before the county board's vote Tuesday night.

The county and Teamsters agreed to a new two-year contract that's retroactive to Dec. 1, when the previous contract expired.

The workers will receive a 1 percent wage increase in the first year and a 1.5 percent raise in the second year, according to Nancy Boose, human resources official for the county. The workers also receive an additional $50 a year toward work clothing and will have the opportunity to participate in a health insurance plan through which the county will pay a portion of the monthly premium.

The IBEW Local 21 agreement is not a new contract, but a new deal on the financial portion of the existing three-year contract.

Last year, the two county bargaining units represented by the IBEW Local 21 — judicial and non-judicial — agreed to three-year contracts that included a 1 percent wage increase the first year and an option allowing wages and insurance to be renegotiated in future years of the contract. The contract will end Nov. 30, 2012.

The judicial unit represents county workers in the circuit clerk's office, probation department and bailiffs, and the non-judicial unit represents county employees in the state's attorney's office, Vermilion Manor Nursing Home, health department, animal regulation and all offices in the courthouse annex. IBEW Local 21 officials are still negotiating with the county on the non-judicial unit's new financial agreement.

According to the new financial agreement with the judicial unit, Boose said, in the second year of the current three-year contract, probation officers will get a flat $700 wage increase; a $650 increase for circuit clerk and probation clerical workers; and everyone else gets a 2 percent increase. In the third year, she said, probation officers will receive a flat $850 increase; $650 for probation clerical and circuit clerk workers; and everyone else gets a 2 percent increase.