School board, JEA reach agreement

Jamestown (CSi) An agreement concludes negotiations between the Jamestown Public School Board and the Jamestown Education Association and adopts pay changes for non-teaching professionals and support staff in addition to the new teacher-salary structure.

The Jamestown Public School Board Monday voted unanimously to ratify the two-year master agreement that in inclusive of a teacher salary agreement and district policies through 2017.

Approximately 10 non-teaching professional positions were approved with a $2,000 flat increase. These include social workers, counselors, technicians and other professional support.

Superintendent Robert Lech says, “This group is not part of the teaching-salary structure although there are credentialed teachers along with social workers and other licensed professionals.”

The positions are not part of the JEA bargaining agreement The committee recommendation for a flat rate resulted in a board-negotiated $2,000 increase for nine-month employees and a prorated increase of around $2,400 for 12-month staff.

In addition, all support staff will receive a $1-per-hour increase at a total cost of approximately $158,500 to the district. The across-the-board raise follows a two-year study and was in the interest of retaining high-quality staff and recruiting new staff to needed positions.

The district will provide more than $2.8 million to the JEA group’s health plan for the next two school years, according to the master agreement. At the end of the fiscal year if the fund drops below the four-month required reserve, additional funds needed to bring the fund up to the reserve will be split 60 percent to JEA members and 40 percent to the School Board.

The school board also elected Roger Haut to his third term as board president and Heidi Larson to her second term as board vice president for the 2015-2016 school year.

The board also approved a transfer of special reserve funds to compensate for an $800,000 deficit general operating draft budget. The deadline for the final budget and mill levy hearing is October 5, 2015.

The meeting was recorded by CSi 10 THE REPLAY CHANNEL with showings starting later Tuesday.