Impasse between Redbank district, unions continues

The Pennsylvania State Education Association’s Patrick Andrekovich, who represents the Redbank Valley Education Association (RVEA) and the Redbank Valley Education Support Professionals Association (RVESPA), on Tuesday told the newspaper via email that it is unfortunate that the board continues to refuse to sign any tentative agreements. He described last week’s meeting as “not very productive.”

The district’s news release said the offer of a four-year contract, retroactive from July 1, 2019, remains on the table. That offer includes a pay freeze for the first year of the contract since “no health insurance benefit changes can take place retroactively.”

The district is offering a “one-time bonus” of $500 to every teacher and support staff worker in the second year of the contract in conjunction with health care benefit changes effective January 2021.

Under this proposal, the district would pay 50% of the teacher’s deductibles (instead of 55%) and 65% of the support staff’s deductibles (instead of 70%).

The district’s offer includes a 2% raise for teachers in the third and fourth years of the contract. The support staff would receive an increase of 40 cents per hour in the third year and 42 cents in the fourth year.

The release said the district is “unwilling to sign tentative agreements on contract language concessions and instead seeks a comprehensive contract agreement.”

Andrekovich contends the district’s proposal would result in the support professionals receiving four pay freezes in eight years and the teachers receiving three pay freezes over that same time.

Andrekovich said the district’s proposal would result in the support professionals being the lowest paid of the 11 surrounding school districts.

“For years, support professional positions directly impacting student academic performance have remained vacant, due to the inability to attract candidates to fill those positions,” he said. “This proposal would make the situation worse … the students and staff of Redbank deserve better.”

Andrekovich said the impact on the teachers is just as severe.

“Currently, of the 11 surrounding school districts, Redbank Valley ranks sixth in starting salary. The district proposal drops RV to ninth,” he said.

“When you factor in the health care concessions the support professionals and teachers are proposing, the district proposal would result in more than half of their employees taking a pay cut.”

The district said the teacher’s association is proposing annual pay raises of 2.5% for each year of the proposed five-year contract, and the support staff’s association is proposing annual pay raises of 37 cents per hour for each year of the five-year contract.

“The anticipated increases to district expenses from the contracts that the associations have proposed total approximately $1 million over the first four years of the contract,” the district said. “Since the district only anticipates an additional half million in revenue in that timeframe, the associations’ proposed contracts could result in an unbalanced budget, which would put educational programs and positions at risk.”

Andrekovich said the district’s news release “focused on a balanced budget and being fiscally responsible, however, they have unlimited funding to pay for high priced attorneys and consultants for the past two years of negotiations.”

He said the district “quickly and easily” wrote checks in excess of $600,000 to cover up its mistake of not having flood insurance and to pay a superintendent who no longer works for the district.

“If the district is willing to make those payments, they should be willing to reach a reasonable settlement with the current employees educating the students of The Redbank Valley School District,” Andrekovich said.

The district said it “remains committed to continuing this negotiation.”