Vote set on pay hikes for school jobs

Matt Bower
Posted 11/18/14

With the state minimum wage set to increase in January, the Warwick School Department is looking for approval of a pay rate increase for lunch aides, bus monitors, substitute teacher assistants, …

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Vote set on pay hikes for school jobs

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With the state minimum wage set to increase in January, the Warwick School Department is looking for approval of a pay rate increase for lunch aides, bus monitors, substitute teacher assistants, clerks and custodians, all of which are non-union positions.

Approval for a pay rate increase of $1 per hour across the board for each of those positions effective Jan. 1, 2015 is at the top of the School Committee’s agenda for tonight’s meeting.

“The minimum wage is going up in January, so at a minimum we need to bump up those positions that make less than $9 an hour, but we rely heavily on our subs in any given school year so we thought it would be unfair to only bump up staff on the low end,” said Rosemary Healey, director of human resources and legal counsel for the school department. “Bumping up everyone recognizes the people that have been with us a bit longer.”

Healey said currently only the first- and second-step bus monitors make less than $9 an hour.

“Our subs do a lot of good work for us, so we’re hopeful the school committee can support elevating everyone,” she said.

School Committee chairwoman Beth Furtado said the pay increase is to keep ahead of the curve with the state minimum wage.

“The last time these positions received a pay increase was in November of 2012 and it was less than a dollar an hour, and previous to that it was a quite a while,” she said.

Furtado said the school department has had a hard time finding subs to fill positions when teachers are out, so part of the reason for the increase is to make the positions more attractive for candidates.

“We can’t get subs. The pay we’re offering at 9 dollars and change [an hour] is basically minimum wage now, and the lunch aides make less than that,” she said.

Although the positions that would receive a raise if approved are non-union, Warwick Independent School Employees (WISE) Union President Mary Townsend praised the increase.

“It’s great that they’re being put up for an increase,” she said. “Those people work hard and don’t make very much.”

As for the report on the RFP [request for proposals] for a long-term planning consultant, Furtado said the vendors and their bid amounts will be listed for the public and a meeting will be scheduled for the school committee to go over the bids.

Bidders had until Oct. 28 to review the 17-page request approved by the school committee and submit their bids. Of the 24 companies that expressed an interest, only four submitted bids, which ranged from $280,000 to more than $600,000. All bids exceed the $150,000 set aside by the school committee to hire a consultant.

Speaking to the Warwick Rotary Club recently, Mayor Scott Avedisian questioned how the school committee can justify the move when all bids exceed the amount set aside for that purpose and analysis of enrollment trends already show the system can operate with one less junior and senior high school.

Avedisian further pointed out that Gorton and Aldrich junior highs are in need of millions of dollars in fire code upgrades if they are to remain open next year, money he said would be wasted if the buildings are closed, as recommended by the Long Term Facilities Planning Committee (LTFPC).

That recommendation called for closing Warwick Veterans High School for a year while prepping it to become a super junior high school and splitting Vets students among Pilgrim and Toll Gate, then closing Aldrich and Gorton the next year and sending those students to the super junior high at Vets.

The school committee chose to table the vote in favor of hiring an outside consultant to examine the district and develop a long-term plan.

Furtado said she wasn’t surprised that the bids came in where they did, given the scope of the RFP.

“The general consensus is that the scope of the work would make it difficult to complete within the 90-day timeframe of the RFP,” she said. “The Long Term Planning Facilities Committee met regularly over four years to come up with their recommendation, so there’s information to be had.”

The School Committee will meet tonight at 7 in the auditorium at Toll Gate High School, 575 Centerville Rd., Warwick.

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