SOUTH RANGE Board OKs pact with employees

NORTH LIMA -- The school board has approved a two-year contract with South Range schools' nonteaching employees.
The agreement was unanimously approved Monday, Superintendent Jim Hall said. The South Range Classified Employees Association approved the pact last week, Hall said. The old pact was to expire June 30.
About 35 secretaries, aides, bus drivers, and cafeteria and custodial workers are affected by the contract, which grants a 3 percent pay increase in the first year.
A raise of between 2.5 percent and 3 percent will be granted in the second year, depending on the amount of state funding the school district receives, Hall said.
With the contract's first-year, 3 percent raise in place, an instructional aide, which is the lowest position on the union salary scale, will make $10,176 annually, Hall said.
The highest post on the scale, a custodian with at least six years on the job, will get $29,208 annually with the 3 percent raise applied.
The new contract also switches employees from conventional health insurance that allows them to pick their own doctor to a preferred provider plan, in which discounts are given for using health-care providers that belong to a network.
The insurance change is expected to save the district money on its health insurance costs, Hall said.
Under the current contract, premiums cost about $379 per month for single-person coverage and about $929 monthly for family.
The new contract will lower those amounts to about $322 monthly for single and about $789 for family.
Employees do not help pay their health insurance premiums.
Vacation benefits remain the same under the new contract. A beginner gets two weeks of vacation a year and an employee with 23 years gets a maximum of four weeks and three days of vacation.
Hall said he did not immediately know how much the new contract will cost the district.