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The district's board of trustees unanimously ratified the agreement with the the California School Employees Association Chapter No. 638 at the board's Sept. 20 meeting, according to district Superintendent Dave McQueen.
The document, which also was ratified by the CSEA leadership, is for the period July 1, 2011, through June 30, 2014.
McQueen said the district was glad to have reached a conclusion on the negotiations.
Tiffany Kemp, the district's chief financial officer, said negotiations on the CSEA contract began in May 2010. Kemp added that all union contracts are for three-year terms.
CSEA Chapter President Holley Luia said the mediated agreement was reached when the district's unrepresented employees – including the superintendent, principals, confidential office employees, chief financial officer, counselors, classified management and the board of trustees – all agreed to cap themselves at the same benefit level as they asked the classified employees to take.
According to the document, benefits for full-time classified and unrepresented staff are capped at $16,000 per year.
Luia said that agreement most closely resembles a “fair share” and not the full share of the financial burden that she said classified workers had originally been asked to take.
Other points of the mediated agreement matters related to discipline, including putting a committee together to consider disciplinary issues, which McQueen called “pretty standard.”
Kelseyville Unified was put into “qualified” status by the state after concerns arose that it might not be able to meet its financial obligations, as Lake County News has previously reported.
That has led to hard financial decisions for the district, including layoffs and service cuts that the district board had to add to a financial recovery plan earlier this year. In all, the district identified nearly $2.3 million in cuts to keep fiscally sound.
Overall, classified staff workers have taken 21 layoffs, said Luia, although four and a half positions recently were restored thanks to additional, unanticipated state funding.
Even so, Luia – a secretary at Kelseyville High School who was among those who were hired back after layoff this summer – said the classified union remains concerned about the safety and well being of students on district campuses because of the cuts.
She said the cuts have resulted in inadequate custodial services, with three school campuses down to only one full-time secretary with a half-time secretary split between sites.
In addition, the district's transportation department has only four hours of clerical making it difficult for parents and school sites to get busing information, Luia said.
“CSEA is astutely aware of how the layoffs of such services hurt our kids and inconvenience our communities families and hope to make future restoration of laid off positions a priority for the district,” Luia said.
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