NORWICH – After nearly two years of negotiations and 15 months without a contract, an agreement has finally been reached between the Norwich City School District and the support staff union.
The board of education ratified the Norwich Education Support Staff Association’s new contract at Tuesday night’s school board meeting. The five-year contract is retroactive to June 2007, when NESSA’s previous agreement expired.
“I am very happy that it has been approved,” said Superintendent Gerard O’Sullivan.
The settlement agreement signed by O’Sullivan and NESSA President Trish Pepe was presented to the organization’s membership on Sept. 3. According to Pepe, the group represents roughly 200 support staff members including custodians, maintenance, nurses, food service workers, bus drivers, secretaries, computer technicians, aides and assistants.
A total of 154 NESSA members voted on the contract last week. The agreement passed 88 to 66.
“We are very happy,” said Pepe, of the board’s decision to approve the contract. The negotiation was a long one for the union president and the others involved in the process. Most items were settled in the first two-day meeting held in April of 2007, but negotiations reached an impasse on several occasions over salary and health insurance.
“There were many late, late nights,” said NESSA member Sheila Brussell, who was on the group’s negotiating team. She and others were satisfied with the finished product. “We felt we took it as far as we could,” said the union’s secretary, Linda Callea.
According to O’Sullivan, the district and union agreed on a minimum pay increase of 4.5 percent for existing support staff. They have also increased starting hourly rates for certain positions.
“Because this contract is used to both retain and recruit, we have effected a change in starting rates,” said O’Sullivan.
Also on the table was health insurance. The district had previously paid 100 percent of health insurance premiums for employees. Based on the new agreement, NESSA members will contribute 1 percent, or $2.97 per pay period, toward those premiums. That contribution will increase by 1 percent a year over the term of the contract, said O’Sullivan.
The new agreement also includes provisions for cash-out options on sick days, the inclusion of Latch Key program staff as members of NESSA and clarification of the district’s longevity bonus policy.
The members of NESSA’s negotiating team had a few tense moments, when the contract they believed to be a done deal was questioned by school board members Sally Chirlin and Priscilla Johnson.
“It was a surprise,” said NESSA Vice President Betsy Greeley. “We were sweating bullets. I didn’t think that there was room for discussion.”
Johnson chose to vote against board approval of the contract, but the motion still passed by a count of 6-1 with the remainder of the board voting in favor of the long-awaited agreement.
Now that the school board has approved the contract, Pepe said, it will be sent to BOCES where a draft of the document will be printed. After it has been thoroughly reviewed, the final contract will be signed by both sides.
Now that the support staff contract has been approved, the district will turn its attention to the Norwich Educators Organization. Representatives from the district and the local teacher’s union are scheduled to sit down with a state-approved mediator on Sept. 23 to begin the next phase in those negotiations.