Labor peace settles in over Council Rock with approval of four year pact with support professionals union

COUNCIL ROCK >> Labor peace is settling in over the Council Rock School District with the ratification Thursday night of a four year contract with the Council Rock Education Support Professionals Association (CRESPA).

The school board approved the latest contract in a unanimous 8-0 vote, three months after the board approved a new three year pact with its teachers union.

“This is certainly a fair deal for both sides,” said Superintendent Dr. Robert Fraser. “And as the new superintendent here I can tell you that I’m thankful to both sides that we have labor peace.”

“A lot of the behind-the-scenes folks are represented by our CRESPA,” he continued. “If things aren’t going well on the school bus, in the cafeteria, with our secretarial staff, with our teaching assistants, etc., you better believe that our students notice it, it can upset their day and then when they end up back in the classroom they are at a disadvantage.

“This membership,” he said, “is extremely important to us. The work they do is extremely important and critical. I congratulate each and every one of you because it does take a team and you are extremely valuable members of our team.”

Chris Cook, the co-president of CRESPA, expressed thanks “to the board and to the administrative teams we worked with to get this agreement.

“Eighty -percent of our support staff lives in the district,” she noted, “so not only do they enjoy working here, their families are here, they are engrained in the community. We enjoy the relationship we have with the board and with the district.”

The union represents the district’s instructional aides, cafeteria aides, clerical aides, maintenance and IT employees, building administrative secretaries and assistants, and others, and includes both 10 month and 12 month employees.

Under the new contract, salaries will increase by .25 percent in 2015-16 and 1.75 percent in each of the next three years - 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19. There will also be step movement for those eligible within their classifications.

“Assuming a static workforce, the total cost to the district for salaries and benefits is $1,329,300,” or about seven percent, over the next four years, said Alfred DiAngelo Jr., of Buchanan, Ingersol and Rooney PC.

The contract also adds an additional personal day beginning in 2015-16, increasing the available personal days from 2 to 3. There also will be increased staff development opportunities for all members of the bargaining unit that will be developed collaboratively by the association and the district.

In addition, four additional steps have been added to the salary schedule for teacher assistants at the front end of the scale and changes have been made to certain clerical scales to increase the time needed to progress to the maximum.

“The district does do salary comparisons with other Bucks County school districts. What we concluded is that for our 10 month employees in particular, our schedules were high,” said DiAngelo. “Rather than try to negotiate reductions or freezes to the existing employees, which could be a long drawn out and perhaps nasty process, we were able to get the association to agree to reduce the 10-month employee starting salary by $2 an hour. It will now take four years for those new employees to get onto the new salary schedule.”

Structurally, said DiAngelo, the district will see very little in savings this year from the change. But he said over the course of the career of the unit, it will save the district well over $1 million.

On the clerical side, DiAngelo said somehow the district had gotten into a situation where a principal secretary was getting a $6 increase going from the 23rd to 24th year of employment. “We have now spread that increase in increments from years 24 to 30 so they are now more manageable for the district.”

For the assistant principal secretaries, DiAngelo said the amount of the increase was not as stark as the principal secretaries, “but we smoothed out the increments between steps 9 and 10 and 23 and 24 by adding steps and taking the salary schedule out 29 years.

“These are not savings that are measurable now and there are not a lot of people in these two categories, but it now is a more representative schedule for the district and comports to the other categories in the salary schedule,” said DiAngelo.

The tentative agreement also modifies employee health insurance benefits.

- In 2015-16, CRESPA will migrate away from a 10/20/70 plan to a Personal Choice 20/30/70 plan. The contribution rate for CRESPA is will be tiered with employees making over $32,000 paying pay 9 percent toward the cost of medical and prescription coverage and employees making under $32,000 paying 6 percent. The change, said DiAngelo, will boost co-pays from $10 to $20 for primary care physicians and $20 to $30 for specialists.

- In 2016-17, the 20/30/70 plan remains with the employee contribution rising to 10.5 percent for those making over $32,000 and 7.5 percent for those earning below $32,000 annually. A new lower cost Independence Blue Cross plan (C3-F1-O1) also will be offered with employee contributions of 8 percent and 5 percent respectively. DiAngelo noted the 10/20/70 plan will save the district two percent over the 10/20/70 plan while the C3-F1-01 plan save five or six percent from the 10/20/70 plan.

- In 2017-18, the employee contribution will rise to 12 percent and 9 percent respectively for the 20/30/70 plan and 8.5 percent and 5.5 percent for the lower cost plan.

- In 2018-19, employee contribution will rise to 13.5 percent and 10 percent respectively for the 20/30/70 plan and 9 percent and 6 percent for the lower cost plan.

- Additional tiers have been added for prescription drug copays for the unit, which mirror what was negotiated for the teaching staff. Over the course of the plan, the drug co-pay will move from a two-tier system - generics ($10) and brands ($20) – to a four-tier system – generics ($10), brand formulary ($20), brand non-formulary ($35) and a new tier for specialty drugs ($50), making Council Rock the first district in Bucks County to offer a differential for specialty drugs.

- The District will extend the vision plan negotiated with the teachers to CRESPA and will increase the annual maximum dental benefit coverage from $1,000 to $1,500 annually.

Source: Bucks Local News