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Citrus Support Personnel and school administrators began their negotiations Tuesday, discussing issues employees raised in an annual union survey.
By BARBARA BEHRENDT
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 14, 2001
INVERNESS -- Pay raises, stipends for taking on extra duties, more training and improved health insurance benefits top the wish list for the school district's secretaries, aides and clerks as they returned to the bargaining table on Tuesday.
The Citrus Support Personnel, which represents about 450 school district workers, opened negotiations for the 2001-02 school year by presenting the main issues identified by employees through their annual survey.
Salary, as expected, was the top concern of employees, said Chris Miller, chief union spokeswoman.
She noted that the appropriate time to talk about raises probably will not be until after April when state lawmakers have settled the state's budget. But there were other pay-related topics that also concerned the employees.
Miller said workers want to be paid if they have to do extra duties, as teachers are paid when they work beyond their normal work day. Teacher aides who do the job of teachers should be paid more as well, she said. The support workers also want to discuss changing the salary structure in a way so that workers get some credit for their past school working experience.
Under the current structure, new workers start at the beginning of their scale regardless of their experience elsewhere.
Making that change would mean completely restructuring the pay scale, according to the district's personnel director Sam Stiteler. She noted that workers need to understand that as an employee moves across the current scale, the added steps don't relate directly to years of service as in the old salary structure.
Miller also said employees were concerned about several aspects of their health care. They wanted to see better benefits with lower cost to workers, regular open-enrollment opportunities and a continuation of the practice of offering health insurance. Some workers have seen reports of some employers discontinuing health insurance as a way of saving money.
Ed Murphy, chief administration negotiator and also the district's risk manager, expressed some doubt about just what can be done about insurance. "Everyone keeps up on the health issues," he said. "I'm not sure where we can go with that."
Other issues on the union's wish list included creating paid holidays for non-teaching employees, upgrading job classifications to make pay rates more fair and improving training opportunities for various employees.