The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, the Kenai Peninsula Education Association and the Kenai Peninsula Education Support Association have reached a tentative agreement for a three year contract.
The agreement made Wednesday, covers July 1, 2015, through June 30, 2018. The groups had been negotiating since February 2015.
The three-year agreement adopts recommendations from an Arbitrator’s report with some additions, says KPBSD Spokesperson, Pegge Erkeneff.
“In the arbiters report our support staff did not receive a bonus for FY16, for this last year that was worked and that was actually in the District’s last offer that was given to the associations so that got added in. So our support staff also got the bonus,” said Erkeneff.
Erkeneff says there were two other changes –to the implementation dates for the health care plan. Employees who work 20-30 hours a week – will now be able to opt out of the District health care plan when the new contract goes into effect, instead of the "no earlier than Jan. 1, 2017" date proposed by the arbitrator.
“In the current plan all employees must be in the health care plan. And so this gives an opt out if they have other coverage that is not district coverage,” said Erkeneff.
The other piece has to do with employees hired after the agreement goes into effect, says Erkeneff.
“All new employees have to work 30 hours or more to receive healthcare coverage but we are grandfathering all of our employees. There might be some employees that work less than 30 hours a week that do not want to choose to be in the plan so they’ll have the option to opt out. And that’s a one-time option. Once they opt out they won’t be grandfathered back in,” said Erkeneff.
The arbitrator recommended this take effect on July 1, 2017. The Associations agreed to change the date to when the new contract goes into effect.
The associations will present this tentative agreement to their members, and if they vote to accept the agreement, it will then go before the Kenai Peninsula Board of Education for final approval during an upcoming meeting, likely in November.
