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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

District’s support staff face cuts


Boundary County school bus driver Dan Kropatch has been driving for the district for more than  12 years. The school board's decision to switch to a four-day school week will mean a 20 percent pay cut for him. 
 (Kathy Plonka / The Spokesman-Review)
Taryn Brodwater Staff writer

The prospect of every weekend being a three-day weekend has some employees in the Boundary County School District saying that there can definitely be too much of a good thing.

When the school district moves to a four-day school week this fall, most of the district’s classified employees will suffer a 20 percent cut in pay, and some will lose their health benefits.

“I’ve never really considered moving before,” said school bus driver Harold Holloway, who has watched kids on his Meadow Creek Road route grow from kindergartners to seniors in high school. “This isn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back. This is more like a bale of straw.”

Holloway and many other classified employees have already begun looking for new jobs for the fall. Although Holloway wouldn’t lose his benefits, he said he would lose about $3,000 of his $16,000 annual salary.

The Boundary County School Board approved the four-day week this spring after a grass-roots committee recommended a levy proposal lower than the district’s expiring maintenance and operations levy. The lower levy amount meant the district would have to make cuts even if the March 29 levy that voters rejected had passed.

Though the levy goes before voters again on Tuesday for a second try, the move to a four-day week has been decided. Some classified employees – who include cooks, school secretaries and custodians – say they had little input into the board’s decision.

“We were so busy we didn’t understand that even if the levy did pass, this was already passed,” said Marva Mendenhall, an assistant cook. “When this was implemented, it was to save money. But it’s on the backs of the classified people.”

Mendenhall said she’s fortunate because she is not her family’s sole source of income. She has co-workers who aren’t as lucky.

Teachers and administrators won’t suffer a pay cut, because students will still attend school the same number of hours as before, Superintendent Don Bartling said. The school day will start 30 minutes earlier and be extended another 50 minutes, Bartling said.

The shortened week would result in a minimum saving of $108,000, mostly through cuts to salaries and benefits paid to classified employees, Bartling said.

“It is unfortunate whenever jobs are cut back 20 percent,” Bartling said. “It has a huge impact on somebody’s livelihood.”

Bartling said he was working with the transportation supervisor to try salvaging some bus drivers’ benefits by divvying up any extra bus trips among the drivers to increase their hours.

He said supervisors of classified employees are already expressing concern over turnover that might result from the district’s shortened school week.

Charlie Denton, head bus mechanic, said morale among classified employees was “close to zero.”

Even under normal conditions, Denton said, the district has problems keeping bus drivers because of low pay and training requirements. In addition to a commercial driver’s license, bus drivers are required to have 15 hours of classroom training and another 15 behind the wheel.

Driver trainer Terry Mullin said the state also requires a criminal background check and is considering increasing the training requirements.

Because most employees who plan on quitting are waiting until fall to turn in their notice, so they can keep benefits through the summer, Denton said the district is going to be challenged to fill the empty slots in a short time frame.

He said the department could lose about a dozen out of 23 bus drivers.

Though Denton’s not happy with the cuts, he said he’s not leaving, because he’s just three years from retirement.

“I’m sort of bound,” he said.

Others, like Mullin, are undecided. Mullin has invested 29 years in the district and has 16 left until he’s eligible for retirement.

“I’m going to be cut over $5,300 a year on the four-day schedule,” Mullin said. “It’s enough to where I don’t think I’d be able to make a living off it any more.”

Holloway, Denton and Mullin say they’ve talked to others who will be hit harder by the cuts: co-workers who have spouses and children who need the insurance and those who have mortgages to pay.

Mullin said he talked to a custodian who said he’d have to give up his car in order to keep his house.

Though classified employees say they were caught off-guard by the decision to shorten the school week, Bartling said the issue was discussed at two board meetings, reported in the local newspapers and voted on by trustees not once, but twice.

Since the decision was made, Bartling said, he has received a mixed response.

Some parents are concerned about the longer school day, with students having to get on the school bus earlier and arriving home later. Bus drivers say students in the far stretches of the district may have to board the bus at 5 a.m. and won’t get home until after dark.

Bartling said some parents are excited to have more family time through a three-day weekend. High school students will have an extra day to work and earn money, he said.

The longer school day has extended the time between school breakfasts and lunches by 45 minutes a day, food service supervisor Gail Reoch said. It’s enough time that her employees will be able to keep benefits even if they work a day less each week, she said.

Still, “it’s a 20 percent reduction in wage,” Reoch said. “That’s a great impact for people that are making low pay.”

Reoch said she’s most worried about the many children in the district – more than 60 percent – who qualify for free breakfast and lunch.

“That’s 20 percent of meals these children won’t have access to,” Reoch said.