PLEASANT VALLEY : Teachers Union Files Grievance Over Fees

The teachers union in the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District has filed a grievance against the district for increasing health insurance fees without negotiating the issue.

Pleasant Valley Supt. Shirley Carpenter said Monday that the district is willing to negotiate the matter. But she warned that the $120,000 in recently discovered employee health insurance costs would have to come out of $250,000 in unappropriated funds earmarked for salary increases and other contingencies.

If the district paid the $120,000, as union leaders strongly suggested they should, raises would have to be a full percentage point less, Carpenter said.

The district is “just not willing to automatically assume this is our responsibility,” Carpenter said.

Leaders of the Pleasant Valley Education Assn. have accused the district of starting off contract negotiations on a bad foot by thrusting on them what amounts to a $20 monthly increase charged retroactively to October.

The dispute over health insurance has been going on for several years. The union and the teachers are beginning negotiations for a new contract. The present three-year contract expires in June, a union member said.

Carpenter said the $120,000 in unanticipated costs, which include the expenses through September, came about because the district’s insurance carrier did not expect 70 employees to switch from a less expensive health plan to a more expensive one.

Union officials say the district did not inform employees about the increase, while Carpenter says there was an unintentional communication breakdown, adding that “I think it was shared.”