GUILDERLAND — Although teaching assistants and office workers have suffered layoffs in recent tough budget years, leaders of both groups said this week they are satisfied with the two-year contracts each unit has settled on; raises range from 2.5 to 3.4 percent.

“Both of these units were absolutely a joy,” Lin Severance, Guilderland’s assistant superintendent for human resources, told the school board members Tuesday night after they voted to approve the pacts.

Severance described the units as “very professional” and “very gracious,” saying, “It makes a huge difference when people come to the table with the understanding a little negotiation will go on.”

The office workers negotiated in five sessions and the teaching assistants in six, she told The Enterprise. Severance told the board, “I couldn’t be more proud and happy for them.”

“You folks do great work and we really appreciate you,” said board President Barbara Fraterrigo.

At the request of the board, Severance told The Enterprise on Wednesday, she and Neil Sanders, the other negotiator for the district, brought up increasing the share of health-insurance costs to be paid by employees. However, both contracts remain with the district bearing 80 percent of the costs and the workers, 20 percent.

“At the end of the day, it’s difficult to request our smaller units to pay more while they are making less. Our larger units need to move on that and be an example,” said Severance.

Teaching Assistants

The board approved the teaching assistants’ contract, 6 to 0, with one abstention. The unit, which also includes assistants for physical therapy and occupational therapy, approved the pact by a vote of 97 to 7, according to Cheryl Ainspan, the president of the 115-member unit.

“We made some modest gains and cleaned up a lot of language,” said Ainspan, a teaching assistant who works with ninth-grade students. “We got some increased benefits for members,” she told The Enterprise after Tuesday’s meeting. The maximum payout for unused sick leave at the time of retirement was increased, and the 50-day accumulated sick leave threshold at retirement was eliminated.

Ainspan was particularly pleased that a single list will be used — rather than separate lists for the elementary and secondary schools — if reductions in staff are made.

With the budget cuts in recent years, teaching assistants have been hit hard. “We’re down to the bare bones...There’s not a lot of room for layoffs,” said Ainspan. She noted that assistants for special-education students are often mandated. About 80 percent of Guilderland teaching assistants work with special-needs students.  A decade ago, Guilderland had over 300 teaching assistants.

“We just want to be valued for what we do,” said Ainspan. “Prior to the economic downturn, we were trying to be more equitable in our pay scale. We got sidetracked by reality. We want to get back on that path,” she said adding, “The district was clear in setting priorities with money.”

The new contract, which is retroactive, runs from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2016. The unit is part of the Guilderland Teachers’ Association, but it elects its own officers and negotiates its own contracts.

The teaching assistants work on a 20-step schedule; 20 cents will be added to each step in the first year of the contract and again in the second year, according to Severance; the unit members range in experience from one to 26 years, she said.

A first-step teaching assistant on the old schedule earned $12.25 an hour; for the current school year, she’ll earn $12.45 an hour; and in 2015-16, she’ll earn $12.65. On the top step, teaching assistants in 2013-14 earned $22.15 an hour; this year, they are earning $22.35, and next year they will earn $22.65 an hour.

Once they reach the top step, teaching assistants will get a 2.5-percent increase in salary each year off-step, according to the new contract.

A summary evaluation that had been embedded in the contract was confusing to administrators, Severance said. In its place, “a valuable evaluation tool” created by her predecessor was embedded. “And we added a place employees can sign off on their own evaluations,” she said.

Also added was a template that Severance brought with her when she joined the district eight years ago. “It helps us retain quality TAs,” said Severance. “Rather than move to dismiss, we work to find ways to improve.”

She said the template identifies areas such as: arriving for work on time, interacting with students, or developing classroom strategies. Then the template provides steps on what it looks like to be successful, who does training, and a time line for improvements. “Nine times out of 10, you can turn employees around with this,” said Severance.

GOWA

The Guilderland Office Workers’ Association, which several years ago had over 60 members, now, after budget cuts, is down to 51. This includes keyboard specialists, secretaries, account clerks, a printer, and a registrar. The association vote ratifying the contract was 31 to 1, according to Lisa Peck. She is the co-president of GOWA along with Holly Kernozek. The school board approved the pact with a vote of 7 to 0.

“We are pleased with the contract,” Peck told The Enterprise on Wednesday. “We started back in August,” she said of negotiations. “We were waiting for the teachers to get moving. We were going to piggyback on what they did; we didn’t want to wait any longer.”

The largest of the district’s 12 units, the Guilderland Teachers’ Association has been working from an expired contract for nearly a year.

This was Peck’s first time negotiating. She worked with Kernozek and two experienced members. “It was eye-opening,” she said. Both Peck and Ainspan praised Michael Rowan, a labor relations specialist with the New York State United Teachers, who helped them.

Peck also said, “Our numbers have been dwindling, which puts a lot more responsibilities on the secretaries that remain”; that can be “very disheartening,” she said. Peck herself works with two instructional administrators.

She named increases in differential, in sick payment, and in longevity payments as being important. “Another big thing,” she said, is the new contract allows members to roll over years for longevity from other units so if, for example, someone had worked for 10 years as a teaching assistant, and then became an office worker, those first 10 years would count towards longevity.

Peck concluded, “It was definitely shared decision-making between the district and our unit...I liked the dialogue...We trusted they were truthful,” she said of the district.

The new contract, which is retroactive, runs from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2016. Because negotiations ran into the new year, Severance said, it was agreed there would be a half-percent increase in pay. Including this increase, the salary raise for the first year of the contract is 2.5 percent; the raise in the second year of the contract is also 2.5 percent.

The unit members range in experience from five to 25 years but the step schedule was removed in negotiations the last time around.

The current contract recognizes three levels, each with a starting range of salaries. At the first level, the starting range is from $12.65 to $13.05 an hour; that will improve to $12.97 to $13.38 per hour.

The starting range for the second level is from $12.90 to $13.50; that will improve to a range of $13.22 to $13.84. The starting range for the third level is from $14.00 to $14,80, which will improve to a range of $14.35 to $15.17 per hour.

Severance said the negotiations with the office workers and teaching assistants cannot be compared with the ongoing negotiations with the Guilderland Teachers’ Association.

“The topics of negotiations are a little more complicated,” said Severance of the GTA.

She said it was “refreshing” to negotiate with the office workers and teaching assistants. “They came to the table having done their homework. They have realistic expectations on what can be done in a cycle...When they bring a proposal to the table, they are honest representations...Sometimes,” she said of negotiators, “they shoot for the moon and stars and hope you land in the middle.”

Of the current contracts, she said, “Sometimes, it’s about improving a small thing, like a longevity increase...[rewarding] loyalty over a long period of time.”