Contract ratified
School office workers get 4-percent raise for three years



GUILDERLAND — The office workers at Guilderland schools have a new three-year contract, providing 3.95 percent raises each year.

The school board ratified the contract Tuesday night by a vote of 7 to 0.
School board President Richard Weisz called it "another collaborative...negotiation in which both parties compromised."
"We moved forward," said Karen Cornell, co-president of the Guilderland Office Workers Association.
The new contract had "overwhelming" support from GOWA members, being ratified with a vote of 44 to 4, she said.
"We’re pleased a lot of the language was straightened out," Cornell said yesterday.

Procedures were set up for items that had been just clauses in the contract — like evaluation and sick-leave bank, she said, which took time and committee work to develop but were worth the effort.

Cornell was on the negotiation team with Co-President Patricia Mossall.
"I got a lot of positive feedback from members, thanking us," said Cornell.

The contract runs from July 1, 2006 to June 30, 2009.
It’s retroactive, said Susan Tangorre, assistant superintendent for human resources, because of "timing issues with some new officers."

GOWA has 67 members, she said, and is affiliated with New York State United Teachers. NYSUT’s labor-relations specialist Michael Rowan worked on the negotiations.

Tangorre went over the key elements of the contract with The Enterprise yesterday.
She said of the GOWA workers, many of whom staff the seven school offices, "Often, they are that first voice, speaking to the public, and they work with the staff and the students."
Tangorre said the contract hadn’t been "touched" in 15 years and much of the neogtiations centered around "contract cleanup."
"We had to align it with Civil Service regulations and titles," she said. "Laws have changed," Tangorre said, giving the example of how workers are compensated for unused vacation time when they retire. "We’re legally required to pay; we can’t hand you cash," she said. "Now we’re allowed by law to put it in a tax-sheltered annuity."

This contract, like others the distsrict has recently negotiated, includes an evaluation system.
"There had been a brief probationary evaluation in compliance with Civil Service regulations," said Tangorre. "After that, evaluation was really almost discretionary."
Now, GOWA workers will regularly undergo "performance-based evaluation," said Tangorre. "That will be very different for these folks; some haven’t been evaluated formally in years," she said.

The new contract creates a third level of office workers — Level 1 workers, who, Tangorre said, primarily operate copying machines.
"They are not career positions," she said. "Most people don’t stay in them."

The Level 1 workers progress up a series of five steps for each year they work at the district. Workers on the first step this year earn $10.50 an hour and will earn $11.27 in 2008-09, the last year of the contract. Level 1 workers on the top step now earn $11.50 an hour and will earn $12.27 the last year of the contract.

Level 2 workers, who are entry-level keyboard specialists and account clerks, now earn $10.98 an hour at the first step and will earn $11.53 the final year of the contract. Level 2 and 3 workers progress up nine steps. A top-step Level 2 worker now earns $12.69 an hour and will earn $13.07 in the final year of the contract.
Level 3 workers are senior keyboard specialists and senior account clerks, who do data entry, and one offset print-machine operator. They have a "higher level of responsibility," said Tangorre than the Level 2 workers. The titles, she explained, are set by Civil Service.

Level 3 workers on the first step now earn $11.96 an hour and will earn $12.55 in 2008-09. Level 3 workers on the top, or ninth, step now earn $13.67 and will earn $14.22 on the last year of the contract.

GEA contract

At its last meeting, the board ratified a four-year contract with the Guilderland Employees Association, which has 207 members, including bus drivers and monitors, food-service workers, and maintenance workers.

Weisz announced at the May 8 meeting that the raises are 3.72 percent for the first year, 3.78 percent for the second year, and 3.9 percent for the third and fourth years of the contract.

After printing this on May 10, The Enterprise heard objections that the increase for the first year was actually 1.54 percent and for the second year is 1.62 percent, while the 3.9-percent raise is correct for the last two years of the contract.
"They count step increases; it’s not a pay raise," said one GEA member. He also said, "The school district gave us a 1-percent raise if we ratified the contract. To me, that’s a bribe."

A copy of the contract shows, for example, a bus driver on the top, or 10th step, earning $20.09 an hour in 2005-06, which is 30 cents more an hour than a driver earned on the top step in 2004-05 — a 1.5 percent raise.

The next year, in 2006-07, the contract shows a top-step driver earning $20.41, which is 32 cents more an hour than a top-step driver earned the year before — a 1.6 percent raise.
Asked this week about the discrepancy, Tangorre said of step increases and raises, "It’s usually an average of all of it"Each unit can disseminate it however they want in negotiation."

She referred further questions to Neil Sanders, the district’s assistant superintendent for business.
Sanders said that the figures announced by Weisz are "a reflection of the total salary increases for all unit members from the base year."
He went on, "Not everybody gets the same increase"We have variations in the steps. This was true in the old contract, too. You can’t look at one person in isolation."
He said of the current fee schedule and the raises. "It was never intended to be a flat percentage increase"That’s not the model."
Asked about the 1 percent of the previous year’s salary, Sanders said, "One thing we looked at was some additional money — a pot of money to be distributed to employees on a more equitable basis than the step schedule."

It was distributed equally to members based on hours worked, he said.
"It was one way to get a settlement in a year when we were having difficulty getting a settlement," concluded Sanders. "It wasn’t tied to ratification whatsoever."