SUNBURY – The Shikellamy School Board says it’s it has given its support staff two options in negotiations, this after months of rejections during 12 negotiating sessions with its union so far. The school board says the union can either choose subcontracting, or meet a target saving proposed by the board.
In December 2020, the board says it passed a motion to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) to ‘explore options for delivery of services’ for secretaries and paraprofessional services. The board says an agency, ESS, responded to the RFP in February with a proposal to manage secretaries, aides, and cafeteria aides. That offer included $725,000 in taxpayer savings in the first year, and a five-year savings of over $3.6 million. The district has not acted on this proposal. The board says ESS provides this same service to other school districts statewide.
Under the proposed ESS management, the board says 100% of current employees would receive an interview if interested, with an average of 85-90% retained, and all local workers would be hired. If the union agrees to subcontracting, the board said last week it would raise the maximum subcontracted pay rate to $15.00 per hour, after first offering $14.50 per hour earlier this month.
The second option is to keep the work in-house, but the union would have to help meet the district’s target savings of $2.5 million over five years. Early, in March, the district had asked the union to assist in saving $2.97 million over five years.
The district says, dating back from September 2020 to January 2021, the Shikellamy school board consistently offered a $0.30 per hour increase with a change from a $0 deductible health care plan. The school board says all those proposals were rejected by the union. The board says those offers were also an increase from its February 2020 proposal that included a $0.25 per hour increase and the same health care plan. The next set of negotiations is scheduled for next Monday.
