Raises approved for Clark County School District support staff

All 10,000 bus drivers, janitors, cooks and other Clark County School District support staff will receive a
2 percent cost of living raise this school year, according to the 2013-15 contract negotiated by district officials and the Education Support Employees Association, which represents the workers.

Support staff salaries also will be increased by another 1 percent, but they won’t see that in their paychecks because the money will cover an increase in payments to the state Public Employees Retirement System.

The 3 percent raises will cost
$2.5 million.

However, the established system of pay steps granting automatic raises to workers for consecutive years in the district will remain frozen in 2013-14 and 2014-15.

That’s not what the union agreed to, union President John Carr said Thursday.

He said that his members agreed to the freeze for 2013-14, but not 2014-15, when they approved the contract terms in a 300 to 13 vote July 20.

However, the contract says workers will receive a cost-of-living adjustment in lieu of pay-step increases for the duration of the contract, School Board President Carolyn Edwards said before the board unanimously approved the agreement.

Union members were asked to approve a 2 percent raise in late May but overwhelmingly voted it down because of suspicions that the district had made the raise contingent on the union disaffiliating from its parent organizations. Those suspicions have never been substantiated.

At the May meeting, union leaders held a vote requesting that the local cut ties with the Nevada State Education Association and its parent, the National Education Association. It failed.

The support staff union and the district’s teachers union combine to form one of the largest National Education Association chapters in the country.

Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard
@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.