TROY - The Troy Area School Board this week grappled with a matter related to a grievance filed by the support union concerning benefits.
The board voted to table action until the April meeting.
In April 2013, the Troy Area Educational Support Personnel Association presented the district with a grievance at the beginning of negotiations, according to district superintendent W. Charles Young. He said it was held in abeyance, however, as negotiations continued.
Young said the union contends that employees working 20 or more hours per week in the district are entitled to benefits.
The district's practice, however, has been to not provide benefits if the positions were 20 hours or less a week.
Currently, there are several custodial and cafeteria positions in which the employees work four hours per day, or 20 hours per week.
So this week, the board considered three motions which would have eliminated the four-hour per day positions, created new 19-hour per week positions, and transferred the employees concerned into the new 19-hour per week positions.
The district's labor attorney had provided advice, Young noted at the beginning of the meeting.
"After the last negotiating session, our attorney suggested to us that we put a cap basically on the liability that we're incurring as the grievance and the negotiations go on," he said. "The grievance has a definite time when it began. And I'm not sure of all the legal language, but it's a certain number of days ahead of when the grievance was actually filed."
"And then as it has gone on to this point, it just sort of just keeps on going. His suggestion and advice to the board was to change the hours from 20 per week to 19 per week for those employees so that the effective date listed on this agenda becomes the end of our liability for those situations."
"I just kind of wanted to go over that real quickly with you and remind you what we were advised to do by the attorney."
The board, however, tabled the matter.
About 16 people were seated in the audience. When asked for comment by The Daily Review, Young said the employees involved were among those attending the meeting.
Young said the grievance is currently in abeyance.
At the beginning of the meeting and prior to the board's consideration of the three motions, Larry Grace, a former board member, told the board, "these people are just hearing about this today. And I don't think it's fair to them because they haven't even had a chance to be able to talk to their union representative." He wanted the board to table the matter. Grace said he was at the meeting for his wife.
The names of the employee involved were listed on the agenda in the transfer motion as Evelyn Gee, Diana Burris, Kristina Coxhead, Carleena Carnes, Matt Williams, Danielle Boyd, Dolly Jones, Tess Leitner, Petra May, Jean Schonher, and Linda Halter.
Grace was also concerned about the employees losing time, should their hours be shortened.
This aspect was also addressed by board president Todd Curren during the meeting.
"I'm not at all interested in taking time away from employees either," he said. "But the problem is we have a lot of exposure because of this, the question about whether it's 19 hours or 20 hours where we pay benefits."
There was some discussion about what would result with the tabling of the motions.
"If we table this, what will happen?" board vice president Dan Martin said.
Curren said, "our exposure is continued. Right now, we're exposed. If there's a finding against us that we should have been paying benefits, we're exposed back to a certain date. If we don't fix it now, we're exposed beyond todayâ¦"
Young expanded on this at a later point in the meeting.
"Accrual of time is what you're looking at," he told board member Deb Harer.
"But how much is that going to cost us, if we're found liable?" Harer asked him.
"You don't know, you have no idea what their next medical problem will be."
"You're going back to a certain date in time and if we lose the thing, whatever we would have paid for, for their medical care, we will owe them. Right now, nobody that I know had cancer or a heart attack or anything like that, OK? I can't predict what that will be tomorrow or a month or two months or three months from now. And that is what the lawyer is telling you. You need to put a cap on what your liability will be."
There was some talk of whether the union would agree to limiting the exposure, but Curren noted that the board couldn't ask the employees their opinion at the meeting because "I assume that would be unfair labor practices."
Board solicitor Evan Williams III asked if there was any chance of the other side changing its position.
Young said, "I can't predict one way or the other."
He noted Grace called him earlier and they talked. "It's going to be dependent on whether they can change the opinion of the people they need to talk to."
From the audience, Grace said, "and that was all I was asking, is that they have the opportunity to go to their union representative."
Board member Bill Brasington voted against tabling on the first motion.
When asked for comment, he said he voted against it because he thought another solution could have been found and he would have liked to continue the discussion. For example, he thought perhaps the hours could be brought down to 19 hours and 45 minutes.
He said that the issue is about much more than the hours, and the liability aspect needs to be addressed quickly. Brasington thought the motions should have been lumped together. He voted for the other two motions because he said the tabling of the first motion negated the other two.
Harer voted no on the trio of motions.
"First, I don't want to go against the advice of our attorney," she explained prior to her no vote on the second motion. "And second, we can change it back as quickly.
An unrelated transfer of Loretta Bruce from personal care aide at W.R. Croman Primary School to instruction aide at the school was approved.
Eric Hrin can be reached at (570) 297-5251; e-mail: reviewtroy@thedailyreview.com.