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The San Ramon Valley Unified School District’s board of education approved tentative agreements with two out of three unions representing district employees at its last regular meeting, along with pay raises for unrepresented managerial staff.
The board voted unanimously to approve contracts with the district’s two bargaining units in the California School Employees Association as well as School Employees International Unit following a public disclosure of the tentative agreements at its May 14 meeting, as well as a salary increase and one-time payment for managerial and administrative staff that does not apply to the superintendent.
The agreements with the two CSEA units include an ongoing salary increase of 6.81% for unit 2 and a 6% salary increase for unit 3, with a 6% ongoing salary increase included in the SEIU agreement, all effective July 1. The agreements also consist of a one-time payment of 1% of the unionized employees annual salaries based on the salary schedule that was in effect on Nov. 1, 2023.
In addition to the salary increases and one-time payments, agreements with both unions included changes to the evaluation processes that are set to be adjusted.
“Our human resources director of classified Evan Powell will be working with our classified bargaining units to kind of reevaluate and modernize our evaluation tools that we use with classified employees,” said Melanie Jones, assistant superintendent of human resources at that night’s meeting. “It’s been quite some time since we’ve revisited those, and we just want to make sure they’re effective and as meaningful as possible.”
She added that the SEIU agreement would also see parallel changes to the evaluation process.
Following approval of the tentative agreements with both unions, the board moved on to proposed salary increases and one-time payments for assistant superintendents in the district, consisting of a 6% ongoing salary increase and a 1% one-time payment.
“As you are aware, it’s been the district’s longstanding practice to extend ongoing salary increases as well as one-time payments negotiated with its bargaining units to non-represented management and classified confidential employees,” Jones said.Â
In addition to the agreements with CSEA and SEIU approved that evening, district staff pointed to a 6% ongoing salary increase agreed to earlier with the San Ramon Valley Education Association.
“Accordingly, we’re requesting that the board approve an ongoing 6% increase to the schedules of the Tier IV management and the contracted management employees, which are the assistant superintendent,” Jones said.
Staff also requested an additional .81% salary increase for Tier IV confidential employees, in alignment with the salary increase for CSEA unit 2 based on funds paid into retiree benefits.
“This is because, as I shared a few minutes ago, to the CSEA unit 2, we applied an additional .81% to the salary schedule as a redirection of funds from the retiree employee benefits trust,” Jones said. “The same salary increase should be applied to the confidential employees Tier IV management salary schedule to make sure that we maintain alignment with the three positions that report to the assistant superintendents.”
Board president Laura Bratt noted that the district was in the process of renegotiating contracts for assistant superintendents, but that the changes on the agenda at that night’s meeting applied to the current contract in effect in the meantime.
While the district is facing financial challenges, including a commitment to reduce spending by more than $10 million in the next school year and a special election for two parcel taxes that failed to pass the required threshold of two-thirds voter support on May 7, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Stella Kemp said that the provisions of the agreements with all three unions as well as managerial employees had been reviewed and approved by the county office of education.
“The settlement agreements were calculated and forwarded to the county for consideration, and we received a letter back from the county that agreed with our math,” Kemp said.
The budget implications consist of an additional $1,946,844 in spending for the SEIU contract, $3,558,999 for the CSEA contract, and $59,531 in ongoing spending for managerial employees plus a one-time cost of $9,922 effective in the 2023-24 school year.
