2022-03-12 - The Southern Ocean Times

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Page 4, The Southern Ocean Times, March 12, 2022

Union:

Continued From Page 1 but it is so disheartening to open up Facebook and read what the Board of Education is doing,” she said. “The Board of Education cares about our staff and we want a fair contract.”

McAvoy said, “this is why we are at an impasse. Two different sides could not agree. Two sides collectively agreed to go to impasse. We respect our teachers; we want a fair contract.”

She prefaced that such a contract had to be for “all teachers, not just a certain group. Every teacher, every staff member. We are looking at fiscal responsibility and a fair contract for all.”

Board President Frank Palino confirmed, “we are at an impasse at this point. I am the chair of the negotiation committee and during our last (negotiations) meeting we presented our sticking point was a six-period stipend.”

Palino explained, “a six-period stipend, middle school and high school teachers get $4,500 a year to teach 22 extra minutes. Our elementary school teachers do not get that and we want that fixed. We have no problem paying for time in front of the students. We just don’t want to be paying extra money for time not in front of the students.”

Palino added, “we’re not asking for them to extend the day. We’re asking for fair work for fair wages. That is a sticking point that the LTEA does not want to hear about. At that point they felt there was an impasse and they wanted a percentage. I told them they are not getting a percentage for raises until we clear up the six-period stipend.”

“Whatever union officials are telling the membership, we didn’t offer them zero, we just said we aren’t offering them anything until we

fix the six-period stipend. The representatives of the LTEA don’t want to fix the six-period stipend,” Palino said.

He added, “they want to continue getting $4,500 more to teach 22 to 25 extra minutes a day. I don’t think it’s fair to the taxpayer. That money costs us over $800,000 a year going to these teachers.”

“We actually offered them to go to a separate pay scale to those teachers to filter it out. The response was we can’t do that because it would make our union go against each other because of separate pay. It is not the school board that is doing this. The exact words from the LTEA were, we feel we are at an impasse and that is where we landed. We aren’t the ones who walked away from the table, they were,” Palino added.

School District Business Administrator Patrick DeGeorge noted the Board was in the process of negotiating the contract and working through the mediation process.

He told The Southern Ocean Times that in a letter dated January 28, “the NJEA, on behalf of the LTEA, filed a Notice of Impasse with the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC), citing ‘salary and sixth period compensation’ as the facts giving rise to the impasse.”

“PERC has since assigned a mediator who is attempting to coordinate a date to meet with the parties. Any compensation provided - whether to elementary, middle, or high school teachers is a result of the collective negotiations agreement,” DeGeorge added.

The Southern Ocean Times reached out repeatedly to LTEA President Mike Ryan and the LTEA’s Facebook page for comment about this matter but did not receive any response for this article.

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