The Hollister School District and its teachers reached an agreement that gives instructors a raise and increases contributions to their health and welfare benefits, and significantly lowers the district reserve.
After months of negotiations, including several school board meetings where employees held signs, the Hollister Elementary School Teachers Association will get a 3 percent raise to their current step and column salary schedule beginning in April. The district will also make significant contributions to benefits by paying 90 percent of the premium costs for several health plans—or an estimated $14,536—in October 2015.
Teachers will also receive $14,170 retroactive to October 2014 as cash back or as a credit toward future payroll deductions for benefits, depending on the employee’s preference.
For this school year, the cost of the changes is $291,335. Teachers ratified the tentative agreement during the week of April 17, and trustees approved it at the regularly scheduled meeting April 28.
County Superintendent Krystal Lomanto reviewed a disclosure statement about the collective bargaining agreement as required by law and returned a “cautionary letter” warning the district that if the revenue is unchanged for 2014-15, the district will have to decrease expenses over the next two years by $625,000 in order to maintain a 4.5 percent reserve in the 2016-17 multi-year projection.
“Hollister School District also reports that they have not identified specific reductions for 2015-16 at this time, which is a concern,” explains the letter.
In offering the raise to teachers, the school district’s reserves will take a hit. At the same meeting, trustees voted to reduce the target reserves for the 2016-17 school year from a minimum of 5-6 percent to 4.5 percent.
The state mandates districts keep a reserve of at least 3 percent, but district Superintendent Gary McIntire argued that is not enough to help out during bad times.
“Now, three percent is the minimum reserve. That’s not where you want to be,” he said. “It’s not enough to carry you through any economic crisis.”
This district’s agreement with teachers follows one made with the classified employees weeks earlier.
“We try very hard as we get into collective bargaining where we don’t find ourselves in a position where we made an offer to one group and disparate offers to another group,” McIntire said.
In March, the district’s classified staff settled with the district for a raise and the promise of a lump-sum bonus if state funds are healthy. That group’s 3 percent increase in pay began March 1 and sat on top of a previous negotiation settlement from the 2013-14 school year that gave staff a 2 percent raise that school year and an additional 1 percent increase on top of that amount for the 2015-16 school year.
Like the classified staff, the teachers have the right to negotiate a one-time bonus for the 2014-15 fiscal year based on the governor’s May revision of the budget, though no bonus was outlined in the tentative agreement approved by trustees at the meeting. A bargaining session to discuss the topic was set for May 20, according to the agreement.
