May 26, 2011
Board OKs classified worker contract By TOM SHEEHAN ThisWeek Community Newspapers A three-year contract, approved May 23 by the South-Western City Schools Board of Education, gives about 950 classified workers in the district an agreement nearly identical to one approved by teachers in March. The pact provides for no base-pay raises the first year, a 0.5-percent increase for
the second year and a 1-percent raise for the third year. Step pay increases, given mainly for years spent on the job, will remain. South-Western’s 1,400 teachers and certified employees received the same base-pay increases in their three-year contract, as well as keeping step increases. Classified workers, including bus drivers, food-service employees and custodians, also will pay more for health and dental insurance. Those on single insurance
coverage will pay 3 percent of the premium next school year and 10 percent the following year. Family coverage remains at 35 percent of the premium. The contract for teachers is similar regarding health and dental premiums. Classified workers have been without a contract since June 30. The new agreement, approved by members of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees Local 211 on May 21, is retroactive to
July 1 and expires on June 30, 2013. The school board approved the agreement by a 4-1 vote with member Jo Ellen Myers dissenting, as she did back in March on the contract with the South-Western Education Association. Estimated costs related to the contract were not available by presstime. See www.ThisWeekNews.com for updates. “If (it were) a two-year contract ending next year I would accept it,” she said.
“Being a three-year contract, I’m going to decline.” Myers had said in March she wanted to see the impact of Senate Bill 5, which significantly limits collective bargaining by public employees in Ohio, before approving a long-term contract. That bill has since been signed into law, but a petition drive likely will lead to a See BOARD, page A2
Financial forecast differs from October’s
SHOOTING HOOPS
By TOM SHEEHAN ThisWeek Community Newspapers South-Western school board on May 23 approved a five-year financial forecast prepared by treasurer Hugh Garside. Garside told the board because of the contract agreements, conservative planWe are stable ning and various actions by the due to the advanced state concerning planning and conservastate funding to tive approach (to schools, the May forecast is finances). quite different from the one KAREN DOVER presented last —School board member October. The district expects to have a $51.8 million cash balance to begin fiscal year 2012 on July 1. In October, that balance was projected to be $43-
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See SCHOOL, page A2
Food Pantry case By Chris Parker/ThisWeek
Woman Gardens at Gantz Farm to mark 20 years sentenced for stealing A closer look Brothers Ray and Ronnie Arvin watch as Sabrina Harris launches the ball toward the hoop during a game of “Around the World” at Gantz Park on May 20.
By LISA AURAND ThisWeek Community Newspapers
The Gardens at Gantz Farm has been educating Central Ohio about herbs for the last 20 years. A 20th anniversary celebration for the gardens and a grand opening of the new labyrinth is scheduled from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, June 5. “We’re really doing it up right,” said Alice Sweeley, one of six volunteers who have been helping with the garden since it was first created. The 20th anniversary party will be held at Gantz Park, 2255 Home Road, and will include yoga demonstrations led by Rich Hart and Gina McClung, mini-massages, snacks, and a make-and-take station with herbal products and culinary bouquets. “Mayor (Richard ‘Ike’) Stage is going to be our master of ceremonies
and (former Ohio first lady) Hope Taft is going be there,” Sweeley said. “We’re going to introduce our rain barrels and our water gardens.” A jazz ensemble will accompany the event, which will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the labyrinth. “We’re trying to focus on the meditation part of the labyrinth,” urban forester Jodee Lowe said. “That’s why we brought in the yoga and the massage people.” A labyrinth is not a maze because it is flat, and has no false paths. Its single path will lead a person to the labyrinth’s center. Religious and spiritual tradition says those who walk the labyrinth will derive personal blessings. The labyrinth in Grove City is based on on at Chartres Cathedral in France, built in about 1200.
The 20th anniversary party will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. June 5 at Gantz Park, 2255 Home Road, and will include yoga demonstrations led by Rich Hart and Gina McClung, minimassages, snacks, and a make-and-take station with herbal products and culinary bouquets.
The Gantz labyrinth was installed in November 2010, but arrived to little fanfare because of the weather. The ribbon-cutting ceremony will introduce the labyrinth — and brand new signs explaining its meaning and history — to the public.
“We’ll be giving tours of the labyrinth, the herb gardens and the rain gardens as well during the celebration,” Lowe said. In addition, the ceremony will honor six volunteers who have been with the garden since its beginning: Claire Beglen, Sandy Collins, Jane Goodin, Darlene Hunter, Jewell Lykins and Sweeley. In the gardens’ early days, Barbara Williams taught interested volunteers the basics of herbs. “It was a rigorous course,” Sweeley said. “We had quizzes and we had homework to do.” Of the 10 or 11 people in that original class, six are still actively involved with the gardens. Sweeley said she hopes the anniversary celebration will draw Grove
By LISA AURAND ThisWeek Community Newspapers Grove City Food Pantry and Emergency Services staff and volunteers are satisfied with the two-year prison sentence handed down to its former treasurer at a hearing in federal court last week. On Wednesday, May 18, U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley ordered Gayle J. Tatman to spend two years in prison for embezzling from the charity. She also was ordered to pay back the money, which totaled nearly $213,000. “I want this to be more than a slap on the wrist or a wake-up call,” The Columbus Dispatch quoted Marbley as saying. Tatman, 59, of Lombard Road on the West Side, pleaded guilty in January in federal court
See GARDENS, page A2
See WOMAN, page A2
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