School District to Explore Pay Freezes, Health Care Concessions

As the looks at ways to cut costs for the 2012-13 school year, they will also examine all employee contracts to find savings through pay freezes and health care concessions.

Superintendent Kathryn Powers said the district could save approximately $1.5 million by re-examining contracts, changes to busing, pay-to-participate and other options.

“Obviously the biggest piece will be revisiting the collective bargaining agreements with our unions,” Powers said. “I believe our treasurer indicated that would be a savings of about $800,000."

Powers said this option was suggested by one of the district’s employees during a brainstorming session earlier this year.

Some of the possibilities they will look at include pay freezes, health care concessions, and revisiting fringe benefits such as tuition reimbursement.

The district has already .

Assistant Superintendent Mike Lenzo said they currently offer tuition reimbursement for staff members, but that may be another option to renegotiate in the future because of its extra cost to the district.

Powers said the district will actually begin bargaining in January with the Twinsburg Support Staff Association, a union for classified employees.

The Twinsburg Education Association is in the middle of a three-year contract that ends in August 2013. Powers hopes the unions will work with the district to revisit the contracts.

“They would have to be willing to come back and take a look at the language in their contracts,” Powers said. “It’s one of those deals that we would need to be met halfway.”

Another cost-cutting option would be to reduce classified overtime costs by 66 percent. Lenzo said the district spent $300,000 on overtime last year. These overtime expenses are related to classified personnel such as custodians and maintenance staff.

“Our goal is to cut that considerably,” Lenzo said.

Powers, along with the administration and school board, put together a for the 2012-13 school year. She emphasized that these are just possibilities at this time and that nothing is concrete.

Powers said this list isn’t exhaustive and is open to new ideas from the community during the open forum on Tuesday, Dec. 6 at 7 p.m. in the auditorium.

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