School board OKs classified contract

The La Grande School District’s classified staff will take a pay cut in 2009-10 to help the district in the wake of its challenging financial situation.

The La Grande School Board unanimously ratified a one-year contract with its classified employees Wednesday. The contract calls for four days to be cut from their work year. Terms of the contact also call for a freeze in salaries and wages and in money paid by the district for health insurance.

The classified staff voted Aug. 26 in favor of the contract.

Board Chairman Merle Comfort is encouraged by the settlement.

“I am happy to get this taken care of. It is what is needed to help us all through these tough economic times,’’ Comfort said.

Stacy Shown, acting president of the district’s classified staff employee union, La Grande Chapter 24 of the Oregon School Employees Association, is proud of how of her colleagues stepped forward.

“The classified staff was very willing to do their part to help support the district during the budget crisis,’’ Shown said.

The ratification comes about four months after La Grande’s teachers agreed to a one-year contract that also froze salaries and the money paid for health insurance benefits and called for four fewer work days. The teachers’ agreement meant that the school year will have four less days in 2009-10. These are the same four days classified employees will not work in 2009-10.

The classified employees contract, like the teachers’ pact, calls for a fifth work day to be cut if state school funding falls below $5.6 billion for the 2009-11 biennium, said Superintendent Larry Glaze.

Cutting the school year four days means the district will save $241,000 in 2009-10. The savings will help the district significantly in the wake of its financial crisis, one brought on by reduced state funding and declining enrollment. The crisis forced the school district to trim $2.3 million from its 2009-10 budget last spring.

The district has about 130 classified staff employees. They include cooks, custodians, para professionals (including teacher aides), secretaries, library aides and grounds crew workers.