Janitors Benefit from La Mesa-Spring Valley District Deal with Teachers, Staff*

Updated at 12:26 p.m. Thursday

The La Mesa-Spring Valley school board Tuesday approved a deal with its two employee unions that changes their health-care provider and makes $100,000 available to hire custodians and groundskeepers.*

The La Mesa-Spring Valley Teachers Association and Chapter 419 of the Classified School Employees Association ratified the agreement on Sept. 27, which they say helps relieve staff of some janitorial duties.

“If you listen to the media, you’ll hear that we are overpaid, too powerful, work short hours and have too much time off,” said Pam Burns, vice president of the La Mesa-Spring Valley Teachers Association, at Tuesday night’s school board meeting at the district’s Date Avenue headquarters.

“The truth is, we are hard-working, dedicated to children, willing to take pay cuts to keep our fellow workers working, generally cooperative and spend many hours beyond the contract in order to do our jobs well.”

As a result of the deal approved 5-0 Tuesday night by the school board, which changes the health-care benefits provider, the will soon restore hours and hire grounds, custodial and warehouse employees with the 2012 savings from a health and welfare benefits agreement with teachers and staff.

Burns said the deal was ratified by 94% of union members.

“Classified personnel will be back at work or have their hours reinstated, and hopefully, teachers will then be relieved of sweeping, carrying trash, cleaning white boards, vacuuming and wiping down sinks and counter tops, and they can get back to descriptive feedback and nonfiction writing,” Burns said.

She said the leader of the teachers’ bargaining unit suggested that the savings be used toward adding classified jobs.

Board member Bill Baber warned that adding classified positions should not be taken as a sign that the state “trigger” will not be pulled. Up to $1.5 billion in extra spending cuts to state K-12 schools will be triggered in the middle of the fiscal year if revenue projections fall short.

“We don’t want to raise unreasonable expectations that us spending $100,000 more, even though it came from savings, means we’re turning the corner,” Baber said.

Schools Superintendent Brian Marshall noted that the extra positions are only a part of the current fiscal year agreement. But if the district endures additional budget cuts from the state, Marshall said he thinks it will be OK.

“We’ll be able to stand a mild to moderately severe storm,” Marshall said. “If it’s a Category 5 hurricane, then it’s a Category 5 hurricane and all bets are off. But if it’s kind of what it’s looking like—and certainly gosh knows what will happen and how that’s all going to change—we are in a good place to move forward, as good a place as we can be.”

The district and unions decided that the Voluntary Employees Benefits Association will be the health-care benefits provider for 2012, and employees will be able to choose either Kaiser or United Health Care plans.

David Yoshihara, assistant superintendent for business services, said parents, teachers and principals have noticed the need for restoration to grounds, custodial and warehouse services since the district reduced services and implemented “the core” program at the start of the school year.

As a part of the core program, the warehouse delivery staff was reduced 26%, or 1.35 full-time equivalent to 1.0 FTE.

The district has only one driver that delivers to all of the sites, Yoshihara said. Custodial staff was reduced 42%, or 29.75 FTE to 17.25 FTE, which has cut evening custodial hours at each site. In addition, grounds staff was reduced 37%. Groundskeeper classification employees were eliminated.

Yoshihara said the system has revealed some unanticipated costs, primarily in the area of delivery schedules. Deliveries can take almost two full weeks if the timing is not correct, he said.

In previous years, food and nonfood items were delivered to every site once a day and five times each week.

Under the new model, Yoshihara said, food is delivered everyday and nonfood items are delivered once a week. Thus six stops rather than five are made at each site.

“I think the sites put forward a great effort to make this work, but we do have certain mandatory timelines with regards to delivery, particularly the area of special education,” Yoshihara said.

Besides delivery problems, school sites have had trouble deciding custodial priorities, especially at larger school, Yoshihara said. And the absence of groundskeepers could lead to environmental hazards at school sites, he said.

“How long can you put it off?” asked Yoshihara, who said he has noticed weeds and shrubs growing at the sites. “Mother Nature will continue to weave its magic, and at some point, it could become a hazard for our sites.”

With savings from the health and welfare benefits agreement, Yoshihara said the district plans to add 12 hours of additional custodial services, so there will be two roving custodians instead of one.

Bancroft Elementary in Spring Valley and Murray Manor Elementary in La Mesa—two of the larger campuses—will each get two more custodial hours.

Yoshihara said the cost of these extra services is about $43,000. The plan also includes adding back the daily delivery of nonfood items to sites, estimated at $11,000. He also said the district will hire two gardeners, estimated at $90,000.

The board will hire the employees in December.

While the district is adding classified jobs, Yoshihara noted that the core program will still be maintained because the “fiscal condition remains tight” and a possibility exists of midyear cuts.

“Given that, I think that the district’s situation is one that has taken a better step,” Yoshihara said. “Not only because of the ending fund balance being higher, but because of the associations’ recognition that that balance will be used in all regards to preserve jobs, preserve salaries, preserve classroom sizes.”

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly suggested that teacher and classified unions sacrificed health costs to free up $100,000 for custodians and groundskeepers. The original headline also erred in suggesting this.