POLAND SCHOOLS Workers OK freeze to assist recovery

The district continues to negotiate with teachers.
By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
POLAND -- School officials say the district is still recovering from two failed levy attempts in 2002, even though a levy was passed this February.
Some nonteaching employees are helping the situation with wage freezes and changes in medical coverage.
According to Superintendent Dr. Robert Zorn, voters turned down a 6.9-mill levy placed on the ballot in February 2002 and again in November 2002. The levy was passed in February 2003, but the district is still feeling the loss from the two previous rejected levies.
Funds from the levy passed in February will not be realized by the district until 2004.
Agreement
Zorn said, with the district's attempts at financial recovery in mind, noncertified teachers and administrators have agreed to a wage freeze and changes in medical benefits.
"That is a significant sacrifice. ... I think it is quite commendable," Zorn said.
Those employees with step raises coming will still get those pay increases. According to Zorn, negotiated step raises cannot be retroactively taken away. Even with the step raises in place, Zorn said, more than 50 of the union's 85 employees will receive no additional money because they have reached the top level of the step increments.
The contract is for one year.
The school board is still negotiating with the teaching staff. Christina Swanson, teachers union president, said the union is hopeful that an agreement will be reached soon.
Zorn said the nonteaching staff wanted to show voters they too were willing to share in the sacrifice after voters approved the levy in February. He said the agreement should be a significant signal to those in the Poland community.
Zorn said the employees previously had three medical-coverage plans to choose from, but that has been reduced to one and the one plan has been reconfigured to create an additional 7 percent savings to the district.
According to Zorn, noncertified union employees hired after 2000 pay 5 percent of their health-care premium; the district pays 100 percent of the premium for those hired before 2000. He said the union agreed to scale back the health coverage to keep the employee contribution at zero and 5 percent.
Total savings to the district after the medical-coverage changes is about $209,575, Zorn said.
Zorn would not speculate about savings from the wage freeze because of the ongoing negotiations with teachers.
Other trimming
Zorn said it will take more than the agreed-upon wage freezes and medical-coverage changes to keep the district within its "very tight" budget. He said other cost-saving measures have also been taken.
"You still have to climb out of that hole, and you are not going to climb out of that hole in half a year," he said. "It is not business as usual. Things are going to be very tight. It takes time to recover."
According to Zorn, the district usually spends about $200,000 on equipment, but that has been reduced to about $24,000 this year. The district will not buy any new school buses, and the faculty has also been reduced by two members.
jgoodwin@vindy.com