School district, employees reach contract agreement

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- The next paycheck many school district employees get

will be just a little fatter.

Negotiators for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District and the

Classified School Employees Assn. have agreed that all nonteaching

employees will get a 3% pay increase retroactive to last year and another

3% that will become effective Sunday.

District officials also promised to give employees an additional 2%

increase next summer in an effort to keep wages competitive with other

school districts.

The school board approved the tentative agreement Tuesday night. After

it passes through a few more official channels, it will go to the board

again for final approval July 10, said Cindy Means, president of the

California School Employees Assn. for Newport-Mesa.

“So this brings us a great big step closer,” Means said. “It wasn’t

the 10% a lot of districts did, but we’d also like to keep the district

in good fiscal shape.”

The union conducted a small study of 10 positions, which showed that

Newport-Mesa employees were 7.5% behind the mean.

The news will come as a relief to many employees who are already

working a second job during the summer months when school is out.

Last month, just before the end of school when many school district

employees are out of work for three months, about 200 employees packed

into the District Education Center during a school board meeting to show

their support of union negotiators.

The group, which filled the boardroom, was hoping to influence ongoing

salary negotiations.

“We’re families,” said Roland Lujan, a union member and food service

employee, at last month’s meeting. “We’re not looking for big salaries.

We’re just looking for what’s due us.”

In their largest voter turnout in years, employees voted in favor of

the agreement 281 to 46, said Skip Roland, director of human resources

for the district.

School board members said it was their hope and intention to see

employees get a raise all along.

“I am very pleased that we, as a district, were able to work toward

getting a more fair and equitable rate for our employees,” trustee Martha

Fluor said. “I think they are the backbone of out district.”

This is the second year running that classified employees -- who do

not include teachers and administrators -- have gone head to head with

the district, demanding to be brought up to par with the other school

districts in Orange County.

After more than eight months of negotiating last summer, nearly 800

school district employees received $1.1 million in raises after an

extensive study showed Newport-Mesa employees were not in line with other

districts.

It is a process that is supposed to be conducted every three to five

years, but it hadn’t been done in the district in more than 20 years.

It was then that the district promised to keep salaries competitive,

and that’s what employees wanted, Means said.

When the new agreement is signed, employees can expect to see a 6%

increase in their paychecks as of July 1. Because the agreement is

retroactive to last July, they can also expect to see some extra money in

the mail in the fall.