001our special board meeting we open so Miss Johnson thank you good afternoon Madam president Dr Smith members of the board and Community tonight we present to you our teacher agreement between La Township and the Lawrence Education Association the first item I'd like to bring to your attention is um an agreement of a salary increase of 4.5% raise to our teachers that are new and returning and cost the district approximately 3,165 64 our next area in our Collective bargain agreement is our health insurance increased by down it's at a cost to the district of $3 million that's equivalent to 25.40 per employee in the health insurance plan now only 2 million is attributed to the teachers in the total below the board is going to contribute 3 million from the cash balance to address a laser
002and or health insurance reserves and 10% increase will be to both parties currently monthly premiums at a cost of the District of $938,000 926 our third area of the collective bargaining agreement is the teacher retirement fund an increase um of 05% of the trf and its cost in the district $888,000 6 our 401a retirement plan is match and we have agreed to a050 increase to the match and 25% increase to the match if our spring ADM count is up 50 or more students on the fall and the total cost of the district is [Music] $293,500 we have an ACA committee that meets throughout the year and those positions were um approved during the committee meetings we've added an ECA position um of $2,000 for Approved bilingual teachers including SLP or School sites who perform more
003duties than a typical teacher and we've estimated that cost excuse me to be at $134,000 our next area of language is the Lea release time increasing the total Association Days by 10 so that's going from 22 to 32 during bargaining um the person per day limit should not apply and our co-presidents may be permitted by the building PR principle or designating to leave the building mediately before or after his or her teaching responsibilities are completed without deducting from the number of Association days as long as leaving does not interfere with teaching responsibilities or full staff meetings previously announced by Administration when a union representative is needed dur school day Lawrence Township will continue the longstanding practice of providing class coverage for the representative and not charge and Association day there's one more page thank you
004um just to clarify um our language that our superintendent can hire new teachers above the salary schedule in appendix A1 after discussion with the association pres president or their design if needed to address the unique skills and experience of the teacher slps are our speech language pathologist and they have to have an Asha certification and slps may use Medicaid training dollars for this certification which will be provided by Medicaid punding with this year we want to continue the district buyback days at a cost to the district of 8452 and what that entails that is if a teacher has more than 100 sick days the teacher can sell back up to 5 days per year that's in an excess of over a 100 Bank days at a rate of $100 per day and we'll do that
005two times a year as we did that last year in January and in June the total cost of the district is [Music] 6,786 th000 in220 and that is our collective bargaining agreement that we work together on thank you thank you m Johnson um I would like to invite to the podium anyone who would like to address the collective bar baring agreement yes please yeah you your name in your school would be fine okay um name is Ronnie um my graduated from small high school so he went to um Sun side went to pres and then went to in so anyway what I want to say is thank you very much I appreciate the way that the board and the association work together um for things that are collectively bargained but also issues that are outside
006of B law since it changed it's April 18th 2011 at 530 P.M Daniel signed the document and then it changed again there were multiple bills that it changed um I was a teacher in the district for 22 years a former president here and I appreciate your efforts of working together on working conditions and things that are outside the law because if the the staff and the teachers both the ESP and the teachers are treated well they're more likely to stay um I will say one thing I was disappointed last month I wanted to speak and say nice things but you they had a policy that allot does not allow people to speak if it's not on the agenda and I do believe that's a violation of the law from 2022 when anything that's under the
007purview of the school board you're supposed to allow to let people speak all I had were nice things to say so but thank you for working with the association and that's all I have to say thank you Miss simp we appreciate that very much um Mr Young did you want to speak to the CDA good evening your name and maybe uh Eric sorry Eric Young thank you 8354 teista Circle I rise tonight in strong support of the teachers and staff of Lae Township I am pleased to see that teachers including Department chairs and classified staff are receiving a 4 and half% increase in their Sal salary however of course it is disappointing that they are also receiving a 10% increase in the cost of healthcare I would like to see the dollar amounts each class
008or grouping of employee is required to pay for health care insurance per month the percentage only tells part of the story also knowing the dollar amounts would help complete the picture since you presented tonight the cost of the cost to the district of each line item on the teacher contract I'm wondering why you're not also presenting the same cost information in the presentations for the administrator and classified salary update finally our teachers and building staff deserve to have their voice heard and acted upon throughout the year not just a bargaining time we must have an environment or feedback on what is working and what is not is welcomed in Valu I was pleased when President msten announced last month that the board is forming a task force to gather feedback from the teaching staff to
009develop recommendations to enhance the working environment this is a good first step the board should set deadlines for when the task force starts its work and when recommendations are due to the board the board must make sure that actions and changes happen as a result of this task force similarly the board should set deadlines and metrics related to the responses excuse me Rel to the responses from the annual Anonymous staff survey and exit interviews and make sure those responses result in actions made to improve the working environment thank you for your time thank you Mr y appreciate that um is there anyone else that would like to speak to the CBA right now board members okay um since that these are the only public comments we have we'll go ahead and close the public meeting
010now we will open our um special board meeting would you all stand with me as you un States Miss [Music] Johnson you could speak to the classified Sal grou pleas once again M president Dr Smith and board members um tonight we bring to you our proposal for classified raises for our classified staff we are proposing a 4.5% raise ass same as our teachers and their health insurance mirrors the insurance of the teachers as well and for administrators the proposal for our administrators is a 3.5% raise to our administrators uh the exception is our 4.5% to our department chairs only who are also teaching as well and our health insurance and 401 contribution changes are the same that was presented in the collective bargaining agreement thank you very much um Bo do you have any question
011questions it's just easier um thank you Miss Johnson for presenting this information this evening um I'm very pleased to know that um in exec session the other evening the board had a conversation around our department chairs and the importance of compensating them faing ordance with the teacher as they are chairs for departments and considered administrative staff and don't have rights to collective brogaming in the same way that other teachers may they take on a lot of work that's outside of their normal um their normal job responsibilities um I did want to raise a couple of issues that I did raise in exec session the other evening um and this has to do with the difference between the contracted value um as listed on the Lawrence Township website and the difference between that contracted value and
012the salaries that are list Ed in the publicly available Gateway information so as part of my due diligence I reached out to the people who operate the Gateway system and um learned kind of a little bit more about their data collection methodology um one of the things that I understood was that in most cases healthc care benefits are not um purview to what would be listed in Gateway I think the way to think about it is and this is how we report by and large most of our data um is around the taxable income so in comparing the Gateway data and the contracted value available on our website it was apparent that there are roughly 40 higher level administrators that would be constituted in our um in our cabinet as well as building leaders and
013directors that make roughly $30,000 higher in their published contract than what is available in Gateway in having a conversation with Dr Smith and other um members of his administration um I learned that that that that differential could be explained in a healthc care stien that is given to all of our top level administrators um last year that totaled $1,700 34 uh $34.94 as well as a high deductible Health Plan um that is listed at $352 60 contributed twice monthly to the administrator salaries um that stien is usable for um anything it's a stien that's paid as salary would be paid and it's my understanding that that does not necessarily need to be used for healthare but it is part of the benefits package that the administrators um that the administrators get um it is different
014than the healthcare benefits that are listed for other Administration officials um and it is my understanding that those Administration officials pay the same healthc care premium that our teachers do after discussion with Dr Smith please correct me if I'm stating anyone in correctly um and and so in looking at the publicly available Gateway information as well as um taking into account the differential um I still hold with my public state statement that our Gateway data is um is by and large much outsized to what other districts pay their administrators when I look at our top 25 um we are making 27% more 27.77% more than Wayne 37.1 3% more than Warren 25.5 4% more than Pike 28 .4% more than caramel 40.5 n% more than hsse and 45.8% more than zionville when I look at
015the top 50 administrators that's 24% more than Wayne 35% more than Warren 28% more than Washington and 31% 31.1 16% more than Pike 25.4 7% more than caramel play 37.6% more than hsse and [Music] we still rank far above the average in many other districts I say all this to say I have difficulty rationalizing an increase of 3.5% in administrators salaries when those administrators also make substantially more than many of their peers in other districts I just had um a question regarding the health insurance or I mean I'm sorry the 401a contribution changes so um just for the public I already know the answer to this are new employees whether they are teachers or administrators automatically enrolled in the 401a or is that something that they have to elect to do to okay and what
016is okay and then what is the current match before the vote on the the increase it was at 25% and it's gone to% for the match match okay so the uh the match the match will go up uh it's proposed to go a half percent the current match is 3.25% and it would go up to 3.75% and I just have a short comment I just wanted to thank everyone on all sides I know this was a labor of love on all sides um so that we could come to this agreement and um just thank you for that time I know it was a lot I um I just want to make sure that it's clear too for the record because it says classified staff health insurance mirrors the teachers whereas that is accurate that is
017only for staff members that are employed at 35 hours and we do have a number of Staff members um who are classified staff that are not eligible for insurance because they are not employed um for the amount of hours that they need to so there is still a significant number of our classified staff that are not eligible for health insurance so I think that's an important note as well to ensure that the public is aware thank you are there any more comments from the board Miss Norman I'll just thank you for everybody for the work that has been um put into this it was a lot and so I thank you all always and I would like to thank the entire staff um everything we've done here in Lawrence Township it's known to to all
018of us um that our new monies totaled 1.5% approximately 1.5% but with an increase uh the student population of 247 students and um with the district um actually doing some deficit spending to make this contract happened this District because of its financial management was able to make a 4.5% raise to all teachers doable and that's you know in no small part to what teachers and staff do every single day to make Lawrence the District of destination um and I am I'm very proud now uh the deficit spending we are um we have found our in has to do with our insurance laser and the $3 million that was taken from our cash balance to pay them it's not a long-term deficit spending issue but I just want to acknowledge that because of the incredible financial
019management um of this District we do have those Monies to use and I'm very grateful grateful for everyone who teaches our students who interacts with our students who who mentors our students who mentors our teachers thank you very much if there are no more comments we [Music] will there's a motion to adjourn so move second second we journ thank you very much for for I'll get you together she they