Board approves Columbia employee contract

Columbia College’s non-teaching staff will get no pay hikes, other than existing step raises, under a new contract with the Yosemite Community College District.

Salaries for non-teaching employees range from $9.89 per hour to $41.34 per hour, according to the salary schedule.

The main changes to the recently adopted contract involved language adjustments to make it more readable and understandable, according to college district officials.
  

The district’s governing board voted Nov. 12 to approve new language for the contract with  Chapter 420 of the California School Employee Association.

The CSEA includes secretaries, maintenance staff, information technology staff, records technicians, custodians and other non-teaching personnel.

Terms of the contract were reached in earlier negotiations.     The new contract period is for three years beginning July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2012, according to district records.    

“We rewrote it so people could understand what was meant,” said Robert Nadell, Modesto Junior College vice president of student services and member of the district’s negotiating team.

The prior contract, written in legal jargon, had a lot of “therefores” and “whereases,” Nadell said.

Outdated language was also cleaned up.

“We brought the contract into the current century,” Nadell said. “We tried to make it user friendly.”

Most financial issues were left alone, due to current budget constraints, Nadell said.

Per the contract, the salary schedule from the 2007-08 fiscal year, “shall remain status quo,” for the period July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010.

However, employees will continue to receive step increases as earned during the contract term.

Calls requesting comment from CSEA representatives were not returned.

The only part of the contract still to be negotiated are health benefits.

The district is facing an increase in health insurance premiums, so the district and its employee bargaining units agreed to renegotiate new fringe benefit terms once either a new provider or a new plan is agreed upon and chosen, district documents indicate.

The district will continue to cover medical premiums for eligible employees and negotiations are projected to be completed by Dec. 31, district documents said.