VOORHEESVILLE – A longstanding school-district practice that allows six office workers to take off Friday afternoons in the summer with pay, will not continue for employees hired after July 2 of this year.

The school board, at its July meeting, voted to amend the benefit policy for managerial and confidential district employees, and also cut a $6,000 bonus that had been paid to 15-year workers on retirement.
Managerial employees, explained Superintendent Linda Langevin, "supervise other people." Confidential employees are people in the business office who "may have knowledge or insight into confidential matters," she said, citing financial negotiations as an example.
The shortened summer Friday workday has been a practice for "24 years that I know of," said Langevin, adding that, "it could have been longer than that."
There are six district employees that currently take advantage of the summertime perk. "That was part of the terms and conditions of their employment, and it wasn’t documented," Langevin said.
A second audit by the state comptroller’s office of the Voorheesville School District, released in November of 2006, noted the lack of documentation to back up the custom. "Although this is a long-standing practice at the District, only the former Superintendent authorized it in annual memorandums. The Board did not authorize it in a policy or by resolution," the audit said.

In the amended policy, Article 15, titled Summer Hours, has two parts.
The first part refers to "employees designated as managerial or confidential before July 2, 2007." These employees may "be eligible to work a shortened workday with no loss in pay on Fridays during the summer."

The summer is defined to be the first Friday after commencement through the last Friday in August prior to Labor Day.
The second part refers to employees hired in confidential positions after July 2, 2007. These employees will be eligible, based on the discretion of the superintendent and the workload, to work a shortened day on Friday in the summer "without pay unless the employee charges their available vacation leave or compensatory time."
The benefit "only applies to confidential employees," Langevin explained. As of July 1, no employees of the district are categorized as managerial. Michael Goyer, the district’s superintendent for operations, maintenance, and transportation, was the last employee classified as managerial, but, as of the first of July, he works under the administrative contract, Langevin said.
"I’m here in the afternoon, unless I take vacation time," she said. "I was hired under the condition that I would work as much as was needed."
The board has "revised a couple of items," Langevin said of the policy. "We’ve worked on this for over a year, in different parts," she said.
"There was a major reduction in their benefits," Langevin said for confidential workers.
Prior to the amendment, district employees with "15 years of service," who gave a three-year written notice of their retirement, were paid $6,000 in 78 equal installments of up to $76.92 per pay day over the last three years of employment.
This benefit was removed from the policy, Langevin said. "The board has changed the policy so that they were satisfied with the content."
The employees were "accepting" of the $6,000 benefit reduction, Langevin said.
The board also made adjustments in the determination of immediate family under bereavement leave. It is now defined to include: "the employee’s spouse, fiancée, child, parent, grandparent, sibling, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, parent-in-law or aunts and uncles."
The changes "actually strengthen the policy," Langevin said. "The terms and conditions under which current employees were hired, are documented. New confidential people can be hired under new terms and conditions," she concluded.