SCHOOLS Boardman board, staff sign pact

The three-year contract will be retroactive to June 2003.
BOARDMAN -- Nonteaching staff members in the township school system have signed a three-year contract with the board of education.
The Ohio Association of Public School Employees represents about 276 bus drivers, cafeteria workers, maintenance workers, teachers' aides and secretaries in the school system.
The employees' contract expired in June 2003. The new contract is retroactive to the end of the previous contract and will end in June 2006.
Schools Superintendent Don Dailey said there will be no pay increase in the first year of the contract. Those employees due step raises, however, will receive those increases.
Pay raises
Dailey said there will be a 2.5-percent pay raise in the second year and a 2.9-percent pay raise in the pact's third year.
He said the agreement is similar to that of the teaching staff, which was agreed upon in September 2003.
The district, Dailey said, will save money with the new health-care plan in the agreement.
He said there will be a 5-percent savings in health-care premiums and a 15-percent savings in the drug prescription plan.
Dailey said employee health-care co-payments were increased, substantially lowering the premium payments. He said the district will save about $70,000 over the life of the contract in premium payments. The dollar amount saved in the prescription plan will be about $54,000, he added.