Friday, April 30, 2004
Health-care savings likely will be $600,000 a year, a union representative says.
NILES -- With the school district in fiscal watch, nonteaching school employees have ratified a two-year contract with a wage freeze both years and a change to a new health-care plan.
Friday's vote was 82-12 in favor of ratification, said Jim Rabbits, a field representative from the Ohio Association of Public School Employees, whose Local 365 represents 122 employees, including bus drivers, secretaries, cafeteria workers and aides here.
The agreement, retroactive to Aug. 31, switches the health insurance from a choice of traditional coverage or a health maintenance organization to all employees entering a preferred-provider organization.
Under the PPO, they'll get fuller coverage for using participating health care providers. The district's teachers already have switched to a PPO.
OAPSE's health-care switch will likely save the board about $600,000 a year, Rabbits said. OAPSE employees still won't pay anything toward their health-care premiums.
Aware of district's finances
"The union recognized the financial condition of the district," and realized that the health plan couldn't remain unchanged, he said. Employees were willing to make adjustments to help "make the school system solvent," he said.
"Given the atmosphere we had to negotiate in, I guess it's probably a fair agreement. It wouldn't be a fair agreement if they had money. But they don't have money," Rabbits said of the school board.
The agreement also specifies certain minimum staffing levels and enriches the retirement-incentive bonus, Rabbits said. If the equivalent of seven or eight employees retire by June 15, layoffs should be avoided, he said.
Rabbits said he and the union negotiating team recommended that the membership ratify the agreement. The OAPSE workers' annual pay ranges from about $6,000 for a part-time educational aide or assistant cook to about $30,000 for a full-time head custodian.
"It's going to be very helpful for us to avoid fiscal emergency," said Superintendent Patrick Guliano. The agreement gives the district more flexibility in nonreplacement of employees who resign or retire, he said. The health-care savings also will be significant, he said. If employees take advantage of the retirement incentives, "It would go a long way to saving a lot of jobs," Guliano said.
Guliano said he feels as good about this agreement as GM officials felt about the shelf agreement ratified by the UAW, which kept GM Lordstown open.