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Teachers, support staff seek 3 percent, 3.4 percent pay increases

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City teachers association and the support staff association asked for pay increases averaging from 3 percent to 3.4 percent at a meeting Wednesday afternoon.

It’s the first time one of the groups is negotiating under a new Iowa law that made sweeping changes to collective bargaining rules.

The Charles City Education Association — which represents teachers — hurried negotiations last year with the Board of Education to settle a new contract just hours before Gov. Terry Branstad signed the new law into effect.

But the Charles City Educational Services Association — representing support staff — was unable to reach an agreement before the new law took effect last year, and so it has already signed one contract under the new rules.

On Wednesday the teachers group asked for an $800 increase in base pay, from $33,200 to $34,000, an increase the group said would average about 3 percent.

The support staff group asked for a rate increase of 35 cents per hour for all categories of employees it represents, an increase that it said would be about 3.4 percent in total wages.

Both groups asked for three-year contracts running through the 2020-21 school year, with the option to negotiate base wages each year.

The new state collective bargaining rules for many public employees limits negotiations to only base wages. Employers are no longer required to negotiate over such issues as health insurance, staff evaluation procedures, job transfer seniority and staff reduction criteria.

District Superintendent Dan Cox told the bargaining groups in a message Tuesday that the district is looking at changing employee health insurance to plans that would require employees to pay more of the cost.

The school district currently pays 100 percent of the premium cost of single-person coverage for health insurance, and pays 75 percent of the cost of family coverage.

The current plan has deductibles as well as co-pays for certain types of office visits, but once those are met the insurance company pays 100 percent of the rest of the cost for care, said Terri O’Brien, the Board of Education secretary.

The new plan would still pay all of the premiums for single coverage and 75 percent of the premium cost for family coverage, and would have the same deductibles and co-pays, but would also have 5 percent co-insurance, O’Brien said.

That means the insurance company would cover 95 percent of the cost of care and the employee would pay 5 percent of the cost of care once the deductible is met.

Jim Lundberg, vocational agriculture and FFA teacher and a member of the teachers’ negotiating team, asked whether the school board would be making a decision on insurance before the board comes back with its opening offer in negotiations on March 7.

Lundberg said he knows that with the new law the school board does not have to negotiate over health insurance, but he wondered if the board would listen to the association’s input.

“Is it going to be open for discussion, or is what we got from you yesterday, are you assuming that’s going to be board policy?” Lundberg asked Cox.

Cox said, “I would say that probably our position is ‘here’s what we’re intending to do.’”

He said further discussion on the topic “would be more suited for a couple of weeks down the road.”

Cox also said that any board policies will take effect July 1, “but those aren’t even going to be introduced until much later this spring.”

Lundberg asked, “Do you foresee us being able to talk to you about those?”

“Yes,” Cox said.

“That’s very good to hear,” Lundberg said.

Both the teachers group and the support staff group also included a “labor management committee” in their opening proposals Wednesday.

Both describe it as a committee “to collaboratively discuss and make decisions regarding employment matters not referred to in the master contract and other matters mutually agreed upon.”

The support staff had the labor management committee included in its contract last year and wants to continue it. The teachers group did not have a committee established last year and wants to create one now.

The Board of Education will make its initial offer to the two groups at a meeting to be held at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 7, at the North Grand Building cafeteria. After the opening offers from both sides are presented, negotiations usually continue behind closed doors until an agreement is reached.

 

 

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