BWLSD, BWEA reach agreement

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

It’s no secret that mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (BWEA a.k.a. teach­ers) and Big Wal­nut Pro­fes­sional Sup­port Staff Asso­ci­a­tion have been col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing for a new con­tract with the Big Wal­nut Local School District.

Mem­bers of the BWEA and PSSA have been vis­i­ble at var­sity foot­ball games; and ear­lier this month they gath­ered in a show of sol­i­dar­ity on Sun­bury Vil­lage Square while a bar­gain­ing ses­sion was tak­ing place inside Sun­bury Town Hall.

Pre­ced­ing the Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 10, Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing a large group of BWEA and PSSA mem­bers gath­ered out­side Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School and walked in and sat down together imme­di­ately before the meet­ing began.

Dur­ing the pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion sec­tion of the board meet­ing, Big Wal­nut Ele­men­tary School Reading/Literacy Facil­i­ta­tor Shan­non Mignogno stood and said the 200-plus mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion were dis­ap­pointed in the recent negotiations.

Dis­ap­point­ments aside, last Fri­day morn­ing dur­ing a spe­cial board meet­ing mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut board of edu­ca­tion approved a two-year con­tract between the school dis­trict and the BWEA with four “Yea” votes and one absten­tion. Board mem­ber Verna Hines abstained because a fam­ily mem­ber would ben­e­fit from the contract.

Fol­low­ing the vote board pres­i­dent Pam Lil­lie thanked mem­bers of the administration’s nego­ti­at­ing team, espe­cially acknowl­edg­ing the efforts of board vice-president Alli­son Fagan, dis­trict assis­tant super­in­ten­dent Gary Bar­ber and dis­trict trea­surer Feli­cia Drummey.

“Mem­bers of the Board of Edu­ca­tion are pleased that we have reached a fair and equi­table con­tract with the Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion,” Lil­lie said. “This con­tract sup­ports the board’s com­mit­ment to the long-term finan­cial sta­bil­ity of the school dis­trict and mak­ing the 2010 levy last through 2015.”

Under the contract’s terms, mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion will receive a 1.5 per­cent per year increase in base salary for the next two years, with employ­ees shar­ing more health insur­ance costs in the form of higher deduc­tions plus increased co-insurance and co-payment costs.

In a for­mal state­ment released Mon­day by the school dis­trict admin­is­tra­tion, it was noted that mem­bers of the BWEA are mov­ing from a zero deductible to a $200 indi­vid­ual and a $400 fam­ily deductible. Their total out-of-pocket max­i­mum moves from zero to $800 for an indi­vid­ual and $1,600 for a family.

Insur­ance con­ces­sions made by the teach­ers will reduce the district’s Med­ical Mutual health­care insur­ance pre­mi­ums to off­set 68 per­cent of the pay increase over the life of two-year contract.

Con­tro­ver­sial step increases will remain unchanged.

Drum­mey said the health care cost con­ces­sions were a key ele­ment in off­set­ting the salary increases.

“On the finan­cial front, this con­tract secures our finan­cial pic­ture for the imme­di­ate future,” Drum­mey said. “We’re so pleased we were able to look at health­care con­ces­sions that sup­ported the 1.5 per­cent salary increase. With­out those con­ces­sions it would have been extremely dif­fi­cult to make this con­tract work. We really appre­ci­ate the Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion membership’s acknowl­edg­ment of move­ment to a more cost-effective insur­ance plan helps con­trol the esca­la­tion of health­care costs.”

Dis­trict Super­in­ten­dent Steve Mazzi said the nego­ti­a­tions were a long and pas­sion­ate process with strong feel­ings on both sides of the table.

“I’m cer­tainly pleased to have set­tled this con­tract,” Mazzi said. “At the end of nego­ti­a­tions I think that mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion and the board of edu­ca­tion came to under­stand the eco­nomic times that sur­round us locally, statewide and nation­ally. In the end, the con­tract is fair to the Big Wal­nut staff and Big Wal­nut school com­mu­nity as we con­tinue to keep our promise to make our 2010 levy last.”

In a brief emailed state­ment on Mon­day, Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion Co-Presidents Erin Barr and Julie Beeker said “The Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion is glad to have finally reached an ami­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion and we wish the same to the Big Wal­nut Pro­fes­sional Sup­port Staff who are still engaged in negotiations.”

Mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Pro­fes­sional Sup­port Staff Asso­ci­a­tion had not reached an equi­table agree­ment with the administration’s nego­ti­at­ing team by last Fri­day. PSSA lead­er­ship and the district’s nego­ti­at­ing team planned to meet this week; results of that meet­ing and any sub­se­quent PSSA mem­ber­ship vote was not avail­able at press time.

Agree­ments with two of the district’s other asso­ci­a­tions (OAPSE 696 – food ser­vice, and OAPSE 524 – bus dri­vers, mechan­ics, cus­to­di­ans and main­te­nance work­ers) were reached ear­lier this year.

Posted by Gary Henery on Sep 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.