WATSONVILLE — Pajaro Valley Unified School District reached a contract agreement with its classified employees after four meetings that concluded Sept. 15 with a “marathon” 12-hour bargaining session, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Chona Killeen said Friday.
The agreement allowed the district and the union to close out negotiations for the 2016-17 school year.
The PVUSD Board of Trustees will consider approval of the agreement at its meeting on Wednesday.
The Santa Cruz County Office of Education must also determine whether the district can afford the terms of the contract.
California School Employees Association local 132 ratified the agreement on Thursday, with 96 percent of about 1,000 employees giving their thumbs-up, said union president Leticia Oropeza.
CSEA represents classified employees such as office workers, library media technician and custodians.
Under the agreement, all full-time employees will receive a $1,600 one-time, off-salary schedule bonus, while those who work half time will get $800.
Killeen said the money for the bonuses comes from an aggressive line-by-line examination of the district’s budget, which helped the district reduce its deficit from $19.3 million in March to $1.6 million in September.
The district has made the same offer to the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers. That union will return to the bargaining table in early October.
Teachers have been hesitant to accept a one-time payment in lieu of a raise.
“We think we have a core group of members who are willing to hold out until we have a fair contract and that’s an increase on the salary schedule,” PVFT President Francisco Rodriguez said.
The agreement on bonuses was a concession that reflected an analysis from SCCOE that PVUSD cannot currently afford raises without making reductions elsewhere, Oropeza said.
“CSEA decided not to push for salary increases because our first priority is protecting our benefits,” she said. “We decided to meet the district halfway and we’re happy with the agreement that we reached.”
But the union plans to bring the salary issue back to the table, along with keeping its health benefits, when negotiations commence in February for the 2017-18 school year, Oropeza said.
The agreement also gives one day of paid parental leave for “non-birthing” parents, and allows new parents to use their extended sick leave for up to 12 work weeks, depending on their eligibility criteria.
In addition, CSEA employees can get professional growth credits for serving on various district-related committees.
That was a way to encourage those employees to seek continuing education, allow them to move up on the salary schedule and make them eligible for promotions, Killeen said.
Also under the agreement, employees will get one paid hour for group orientation training twice a month, and 15 minutes of release time for training for CSEA rep representatives.
The employees also agreed to a “me too” clause, which will allow CSEA to reap the benefits of other union negotiations, should those prove more fruitful.
Perhaps the most significant change dealt with employees’ accrual of vacation time.
According to Killeen, many employees are not taking their vacation time, and some have saved up as much as 3,000 hours. Others have more than 100, she said.
“That’s an issue we have had for a number of years,” Killeen said. “We want to encourage our employees to take their vacations, at least within the next year after it’s earned.”
Under the agreement, employees must take their vacation within a year of earning it. If they don’t, their vacation days will be “determined by the district,” the agreement read.
The district will offer lump-sum payments to employees with more than 192 hours of accrued vacation, which Killeen said is a way to reduce the district’s “liability.”
Those with more than 384 hours “shall” receive a payment, the agreement says.
“This is time they have earned, and they need to be appropriately compensated,” Killeen said.
PVUSD staff accountant Catharine Griffen, who sat on the district’s bargaining table, said she was “impressed” with the process.
“We had a very nice healthy atmosphere in the room,” she said.
That has not been the case in the past, where negotiators approached negotiations with “take-it-or-leave-it” attitudes, Griffen said.
PVUSD Business Information Systems Analyst Clint Rucker described the talks as, “very collaborative and very effective.”
“I think at the end of the day we came to a beneficial resolution for both parties,” he said. “And I think both parties walked away feeling like we really did what was best for the district.”
The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees will meet Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the City Council Chambers in the fourth floor of the Civic Plaza building at 275 Main Street. For information, visit www.pvusd.net.
