The Mineola Board of Education unanimously approved a memorandum of agreement on a six-year contract with its custodians and bus drivers at last Thursday night’s board meeting.
Mineola Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler announced the school district had settled protracted negotiations that day with its custodians and bus drivers, who had been working without a contract since their last agreement expired after the 2009-10 school year.
The new agreement, Nagler said, is retroactive to the 2010-11 school year, with zero salary increases in that year and the succeeding two years.
In 2013-14, Nagler said the 84 employees in the bargaining unit would receive a 3 percent raise, with 1.5 percent of that increase to be deferred. Contract terms call for a .5 percent increase in 2014-15 and a 1 percent increase in 2015-16, the final year of the pact.
“I think it’s a fair contract that’s fiscally responsible,” Nagler said. “And it’s in line with what we accomplished with the teachers and the administrators.”
He said the contract includes a provision reducing the salary schedule for new custodians and bus drivers, who will have their annual step increases capped at 1.5 percent. Contributions for health coverage are set at 20 percent, he said.
Attempts to reach representatives of the custodians and bus drivers unit in the Mineola School District for comment were unavailing.
Mineola school board President Artie Barnett said, “I’m happy whenever we settle.”
The Mineola school board reached a four-year contract with the Mineola Teachers Association last November, retroactive to the 2011-12 school year, giving the teachers a 4.75 percent salary increase over the course of the agreement, Nagler said when that deal was announced.
The teachers received a state-mandated 1.5 percent salary step increase for the 2011-12 year. For the first six months of the 2012-13 school year, teachers will be at their 2011-12 salary, with the step increase deferred until February. For the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years, they will receive a 1.25 percent increase each year including annual step increases of .5 percent.
Mineola administrators agreed to a new five-year contract with the Mineola school board in February that will pay them salary increases of 6.34 percent over the course of the agreement.
The contract provides for no salary increases to district administrators over the first two years of the contract, which includes the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years.
n the third year of the contract – for the 2013-14 fiscal year – administrators will receive a .75 percent increase with increases of .5 percent in the final two years of the pact, Nagler said at the time.
