School board OKs raises

Amendment to plan allows support staff members to retain pay scale step

WARMINSTER » Discussion and debate got heated, but ultimately the Centennial School Board updated its compensation plan to provide larger raises to support staff members at its June 26 meeting.

In response to employees’ concerns about support staff salary raises next school year, the board added an amendment to its Administrators Compensation Plan agenda item. The amendment resolved the issue of salary increases for the support staff discussed during the meeting.

A group of bus drivers and aids spoke to the board regarding an addition that was made to the already negotiated support staff contract that went into the effect July 1.

Michael Sperduto, of Warminster, spoke as a representative of the group. He explained the bus aides of the district received letters from Centennial explaining that regardless of how long an aide worked for the district, next school year he or she would be taken down to step one of the pay scale.

Such movement would result in a minimal pay raise, as in the case of Mary Kaminsky, an aide who has worked for the district since 2009. Kaminsky said in her nine years of employment, she has received a total pay increase of $1.15 per hour. If she were to move back to step one on the pay scale, her pay raise this year would only add $0.85 to her hourly salary.

Kaminski went into detail about her job, explaining bus aides are important for the safety of the children as they take care of students with special needs, ensuring their safety as well as the safety of the bus driver and other students on the bus.

Following a discussion, the board members went into an executive session and came back with the solution to quickly resolve the staff support salaries issue. Since the staff support contract was not on the agenda, adding an amendment to the Administrators Compensation Plan was a way for the board to vote on the issue at the

same meeting.

The amendment allows all support staff to remain at the current pay scale step. For Kaminsky, it means she will receive a pay raise from her current salary of $13.89 per hour to $16.21 per hour next school year.

“For me, that is very good,” she said, adding her family lives paycheck to paycheck and it was very important for her to receive the raise.

The change will cost the district $275,000 over next four years, a cost that will be absorbed through a secretarial position attrition and, possibly, a dip into a small reserve fund the district has set aside, board member Mark Miller said.

Spertudo thanked the board for listening to the employees and remedying the situation.

“It is the thing to do,” he said. “I care more about these people than anyone else.”

The amendment did not sit right with board member Mary Alice Brancato, who became emotional and, after voting in favor of it, stormed out of the meeting.

Because the vote for the amendment was now tied in with the Administrators Compensation Plan, to vote for the increase for the support staff, board members would have to approve the entire plan as well. The document gives 1 percent raises to the district principals, assistant principals, supervisors, accountants and athletic director, among others, and outlines salaries and benefits for the district administrators.

Brancato said she felt she was put into a position where she had to choose between taking care of the support staff and giving raises to the administration or voting against the administration salary increase plan and not giving raises to the support staff.

“I gave people who already have too much money more money,” she cried, referring to the high salaries of the administrative staff that range between $75,000 and $144,000, according to the Administrators Compensation Plan.

“I am in the situation where I do right by you, but I don’t do right by the taxpayers,” she told the group of support staff at the meeting.”