All members of the WW-P district’s central office staff, including the superintendent and assistant superintendents, have agreed to a pay freeze for the upcoming school year, school officials said this month.
According to school board President Hemant Marathe, the district’s highest administrators will be taking a pay freeze for the upcoming school year.
“For next year, everybody in the central office is taking a salary freeze,” said Marathe. “On top of that, the superintendent will be paying 1.5 percent toward her health benefits, so essentially she will be paid less than what she is being paid this year,” Marathe added.
Still, as required by law, the WW-P school board will be holding a public hearing on the contracts for the district’s superintendents and assistant superintendents on Tuesday, May 25 at 7:30 p.m. at Grover Middle School. The board notified residents at the May 11 meeting about the hearing, which will be followed by action at a subsequent meeting on Tuesday, June 15.
The contracts for Superintendent Victoria Kniewel as well as Larry Shanok, the assistant superintendent for finance, Russell Lazovick, the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, and David Aderhold, the assistant superintendent for planning and pupil services, are scheduled for review.
Review of the contracts for the four positions is mandated by state law, which states that the boards of education must have a public hearing on the contracts for the superintendent and assistant superintendents of schools every year. They are not part of a union.
Last September, the board approved raises for Kniewel and Shanok. Kniewel’s salary increased by 3.5 percent — from $186,150 in 2008-’09 to $192,676 for the 2009-’10 school year. Shanok’s salary increased to $165,854, up from $160,245 the prior year.
The salary for these positions changes every year, usually on July 1. But state regulations require school boards to hold the hearing every year. The contract with Superintendent Victoria Kniewel was signed in 2007 and is in place through 2011. The board agreed to review Kniewel’s salary at the conclusion of each school year.
Last year, the board approved the hiring of assistant superintendents David Aderhold, at a salary of $144,000, and Russell Lazovick, at a salary of $137,500.
In March the board renegotiated contracts with its teacher and administrator unions to create savings of more than $1 million in the upcoming budget.
In those renegotiated contracts, salary raises were frozen for the first six pay periods — a 12-week period beginning September 1, 2010, for the two unions. For the 2011-’12 school year. That year, teachers will receive a 3.38 percent increase.
Support Staff Supervisors. In related contract news, the school board approved an agreement on May 11 with its support staff supervisors through June, 2012. The deal includes a salary freeze for the next two years.
The package includes a one-year collective negotiations agreement for July, 2008, through June, 2009, as well as a three-year agreement from July, 2009, through June, 2012. There are five employees in the union through 2010, including the director of buildings and grounds, two assistant directors of buildings and grounds, a transportation coordinator and the assistant transportation coordinator.
Beginning with the 2010-’11 school year, however, the agreement would cover only two co-directors of buildings and grounds as well as the transportation coordinator and the assistant transportation coordinator.
Under the agreement, the salaries of the co-directors of buildings and grounds, who have been re-assigned from their previous positions, will make $91,500 and $89,000, respectively, for the 2010-’11 year. Those salaries will be frozen for 2011-’12. The transportation coordinator will see a salary freeze for 2010-’11, at $81,475. The assistant transportation coordinator will also see a salary freeze at $64,111. Those salaries were approved for the 2009-’10 year. For 2011-’12, however, the transportation salaries will increase to $83,838 and $65,970, respectively.
Effective for the upcoming school year, the agreement includes a reduction of one annual holiday. Beginning in July, 2011, there will be another reduction of one additional holiday. New twelve-month employees hired after July 1 will receive 12 annual sick leave days, down from 14, while ten-month employees will receive 10 annual sick days, down from 12.
Beginning with this upcoming school year, there will be no paid leave days for the annual NJEA convention.
Beginning in July, 2011, the annual dental deductible will be $50 for an individual, with a maximum of $100 per family. Beginning this July, prescription co-pays will be $10 for generic, $20 for brand name, and two times the applicable co-pay for the 90-day mail order option.
