Dear colleagues,
Friday, September 7th is our first pay. During the summer an agreement was reached between the Board and the Union to have 22 pays for most of us who teach 190 days. One of the steps involved in this change was a survey sent out to members. Below are some of the common questions that were posed in the survey with responses.
· Shouldn't these decisions be made prior to summer break? How are we supposed to budget for the summer if there isn't a plan in place?
· Still don't understand why we don't have our pay spread over 12 months. What is the rationale behind this?
The reason is simple, the Board has been unwilling to consider two pay systems; get paid for the time we work and get paid year round. We know that many people are interested in year round pay and have brought it up in negotiations starting back in 2000, but the Board has steadfastly denied being able to accommodate a choice, like other places. We also know there are many people who would prefer to have the money they earn up front and save through the credit union or whatever means they choose. We would like to negotiate a change for next year if the Board is willing.
· How will deductions be divided up? 20 or 22 pays?
Deductions will come out of 20 pays. The third pays in November and May will not contain deductions for dues and medical.
· September 21st is a long time to wait for our first pay without any advance notice.
The contract states there will be 20 pays on a bi-weekly schedule where the LAST pay must be either the last day of work or the week after. Working backwards that puts the first pay on September 21. This is not new, just different from when it was being done incorrectly. For the last 2 years we have told the Board that the pay dates have been wrong because our last pay was given before the last week of school.
· How would this impact 200 day employees, like counselors, who have always gotten 22 pays?
· Taxes always seem higher when the contract amount is spread over a longer period of time. Is that true?
Taxes are all based on federal charts and should be consistent. Last year was the anomaly. We believe that with the change in the payroll system last summer that the Board used a different chart than had been used before for calculating. You can change the amount of federal taxes withheld from your pay by filling out a new w-4 and getting it to payroll.
· I am not quite clear on what "but the district is able to reconcile items like sick and personal days used by the last pay means" as it relates to 22 paychecks rather than 20??
· I do not know how this is even up for discussion. Isn't the pay schedule in the contract already? If so, the contract is not up. Opening up discussions on minor issues like this opens the door for the BOE to making other issues open to discussion; some of which could be onerous.
If this change is made, this is a contractual change. Doesn't that make it a membership vote?
Our contract gets modified continuously through Letters of Understanding. We often get more positive things added to the contract through letters than through negotiations. Salary procedures 24.011 (see below for exact language) is contractual and could possibly be interpreted to require a membership vote. We were trying to determine how to conduct a membership vote on this issue, but decided that if we got the will of the membership through the survey and then asked the elected Executive Board of the local to vote on the matter that we would be following correct procedures. The last line of the first paragraph states “unless otherwise agreed by the Union and the Board” which made us more comfortable with that decision.
Time was of the essence in this matter. If we had waited to conduct a membership vote then we would not have gotten paid on September 7. Had the agreement not been for a single year we would have conducted a membership vote on this as we would with other important contractual issues.
Salary checks for all contract employees will be paid every two (2) weeks on Friday in equal installments. Payment will begin with the first District-wide existing and ongoing biweekly pay date of the school year that will allow for a pay ending date of the District-wide existing and ongoing biweekly pay date occurring either during the last scheduled workweek of the school year or the week immediately following, and will provide the following number of salary checks; unless otherwise agreed by the Union and the Board:
190 day employees shall be issued twenty (20) salary checks per contract year. 200-day employees shall be issued twenty-one (21) salary checks per contract year. 220-day employees shall be issued twenty-two (22) salary checks per contract year.
A schedule of pay dates shall be issued to all members of the bargaining unit during the first week of the school year.