Current News
(2011-12 School Year)

EMERGENCY MEMBERSHIP MEETING AND VOTE
Please plan to attend the SSA MEMBERSHIP MEETING TO VOTE on the "Reopener" tentative agreement on:

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9 4:30 P.M.
LaVonya Dejean Middle School, Multipurpose Room

We will have copies of the tentative agreement for you to review and an oppportunity for your bargaining team to make a presentation prior to the VOTE.

*** AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAM SUPERVISORS Due to your late work hours, we are in the process of working with the District to make special arrangements to provide you with the opportunity to attend a specific meeting to VOTE at a special location and time. As soon as those arrangements are complete, we will email to our After School Program Supervisors the specific details of that Meeting. We are working on this in respect of your later work hours and to provide you with access and the opportunity to participate and vote. Watch for a bulletin later today or early tomorrow with more details.

JANUARY 2012 UPDATE

It has been a very hectic and busy time for your SSA Board of Directors and especially your Negotiations Team who have been diligently working on your behalf. 

Negotiations Update:  We have been meeting regularly in Negotiations since October regarding the Reopener negotiations proposal presented on your behalf to try to improve the District health benefit contributions.  In addition we have appeared before the WCCUSD Board of Education, both prior to the closed sessions at the beginning of the meetings and during the meetings to provide them with data, examples of the impact and various ways of urging them to negotiate a fair settlement with us.  We had hoped to be able to provide you with an update sooner; however, we have continued to meet to negotiate and wanted to wait until there was something positive or informative to report. We met again last week and then again on Monday, January 30 and presented a proposal that we hope the Board will accept.  The District has been reluctant to make any proposals or commitments whatsoever, and on January 19 made a proposal to us that was entirely unacceptable and insufficient to address your needs and concerns.  We will meet again for negotiations on Thursday February 2 (following the Board's meeting on February1).  Thank you to all of our members who attended the last Board meeting and showed your support and unity in our struggle on your behalf.  It was important for you to be there, and the District and the Board was aware of your participation, even if you did not get up and speak.  Thank you all who attended.

During our negotiations, one of our first and steadfast proposals has been to request that the District pick up the increased cost of health benefits until such time as we reach a final agreement, and so long as we are continuing to bargain "in good faith".  We felt that this was a humane and considerate proposal to make on your behalf; however, the Board did not approve it.  Therefore, as most of you already anticipate, your January paycheck will reflect the increase in benefit costs as a greater deduction.  We had hoped that through our negotiations sessions up through last week and yesterday that we would have something more positive to report to you, and therefore, regret that the District and the Board were not willing to do this, even though it may have ended up being temporary or until we reached a final settlement.   We will continue to bargain on your behalf on this issue.

Fiscal Concerns:  Most of you have heard or read news articles regarding the intensely desperate situation regarding state and school funding.  SSA attended a workshop presentation by School Services association that described in detail some of the budget expectation and forecasts for school funding this coming year.  Because the governor's proposed tax increase election is not scheduled until November, school districts throughout the state are struggling to try to budget for the unknown, meet mandates, operate the educational program, and in our case, negotiate with employees.  The budget decreases and the uncertainty is one of the reasons that our District and Board members have not made any long term or acceptable commitments to us in negotiations.  It is extremely bleak, both for the future of education in California and for the dedicated and hard working employees who are struggling to make ends meet while working in this broken, underfunded and uncertain system.  The District has been holding Community Budget Information sessions, and we strongly urge you to spend an evening at one of the one that are coming up this week.  You will get a picture of the funding decreases facing us as well as a good understanding of the challenges we will all be facing in the future.

Parcel Tax:  SSA has been participating with District representatives and other employee organizations in a committee to work towards the successful passage of a Parcel Tax that would bring local revenue into our District that the State could not take away.  Your SSA Board of Directors recommends support of the Parcel Tax because any additional revenue to our District will help all of us by contributing to the budget income.  We will provide you with more details about the Parcel Tax as more definite information becomes available.

Preparation for Full Contract Bargaining:  Our full contract runs through June 30, 2012 and we had reported to you that we will be sending out a member survey.  Due to the unexpected delays in reaching agreement with the District regarding our Reopener bargaining, we have postponed distribution of the survey for a brief period.  This decision is based upon our wanting you to know the details of any Reopener settlement prior to completing the survey.  We hope to distribute the survey by next week, so watch  for it in your email.  In the meantime, you may want to prepare yourselves, by briefly reviewing the current contract to see if there are areas that you would like to see modified.

MEMBERSHIP MEETING AND VOTE
Please return your RSVP to Mary Jones regarding the Membership Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 8 at 4:30.  Check your notices that were sent to you for the location and time.  We need your RSVP by Monday, December 5.  Thank you.  After School Program Supervisors, please refer to the special notice sent to you regarding meeting time and place.

REOPENER NEGOTIATIONS
On Tuesday, November 30 your bargaining team met with the District's bargaining team on the issue of the Reopener negotiations.  Reopener negotiations are covered by our current contract and provide for each party to open on one single issue.  Your Board of Directors authorized and your bargaining team presented a Reopener proposal to the Board of Education in September/October and again at the bargaining table to increase the District contribution towards the cost of health premiums.  Our next meeting is scheduled for Friday, December 9.  However, because of the uncertainty of the district budget and fiscal situation due to the State of California deficit and the State "trigger" possibilities based upon State finances, we do not expect the District to be able to make any definite responses to our proposal until they receive more certain information from the state.   However, our team believes it is important to meet and work on this matter, to exchange information and review cost and fiscal information in order to be prepared when we hear more definite information from the State.

Your SSA Executive Director has appeared at the Board of Education meetings several times recently on behalf of the SSA unit, urging the Board to make the employees a priority in its budget considerations, pointing out the importance and value of the contributions of our members and the impact of the benefit costs and cost increases on WCCUSD employees. 

FULL CONTRACT
Our current contract is in place through June 30, 2012.  In January we will be contacting members with a survey/questionnaire in order to gather input regarding the future negotiations pertaining to the full contract.  Those negotiations will not begin until 2012.  Our current contract does call for the restoration of the "non-paid" days effective July 1, 2012.  (commonly called "furlough days").

DECEMBER HOLIDAYS
On behalf of the SSA Board of Directors, we wish all of our members joyful and peaceful Holidays.  Please enjoy your time off.

SERVICE RECOGNITION AWARDS
At the November 16 Board of Education meeting, SSA had three members who were recognized for their service to the District.  SSA was present and joined the "reception line" along with the Board and Cabinet to congratulate our members who were able to attend.  Those with service awards this year are:  Ranganayagi Ramamoorthy--20 years; Louis Jackson--25 years; andElijah Collor--30 years. Those who could attend expressed their appreciation for being recognized by the District for their many years and we were pleased to participate.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP

Our first SSA Leadership Development Workshop of the 2011-12 year is scheduled for:

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26
BEGINNING PROMPTLY AT 11:00 A.M.
ALVARADO ADULT SCHOOL MULTIPURPOSE ROOM

We are eagerly anticipating a full agenda, with our dignataries, Dr. Harter, Sheri Gamba and Ann Reinhagen as Speakers and our energetic PresentersAbbie O'Toole and Robbie Mack.

A special thank you to Dr. Harter for his support, to the Speakers and Presenters, and especially to H.R. for working on this with SSA.

DATES TO REMEMBER
 
October 10-November 4    
HEALTH BENEFITS OPEN ENROLLMENT period

Friday, October 14               
This is a non-work, non-paid day for employees in accordance with our contract.

Thursday, October 20         
Notices are being sent to SSA members to provide information about the annual business and nominations meeting. This meeting is for the purpose of nominating candidates to the SSA Board of Directors.  Jim Edward, Maintenance Supervisor, is the Chair of the Nominating Committee and can provide additional information.  The election of Board members will be held in December and an announcement will be sent in advance regarding the date, time and location of the December meeting. 

Saturday, October 22          
Health Fair at Helms Middle School.  9:00 a.m. - Noon.

Wednesday, October 26      
SSA Member Leadership Workshop.  SSA members will be released from work by 10:30 a.m. to attend this workshop.  It will be held at Alvarado Adult School, Multipurpose Room.  Please plan to leave work in sufficient time to arrive by no later than11:00 a.m.  We will begin promptly at 11:00 with a lunch (provided by WCCUSD Nutritional Center) and Dr. Harter as a keynote speaker.  Ms. Sheri Gamba will also make a presentation to the group regarding budget and finance issues.  We will then break into groups for the workshops.  Our SSA members have varying work day schedules; therefore the workshops have been planned to recognize the differing schedules.  We plan for the workshop to end by 3:30 for most of the participants;  however, Cook Managers and  Nutrition Center employees will be released at 2:30. In addition, After School Program Supervisors will be released at 2:30 in order to return to their school sites.  

SSA MEMBERSHIP MEETING
We have also scheduled the annual SSA MEMBERSHIP MEETING for OCTOBER 20.  This is the SSA business meeting where members may nominate candidates for the SSA Board of Directors who are then elected at our December meeting.  You will be receiving a notice of the membership meeting in the near future with time, location and a list of the positions that are up for election; however, we want to give you advance notice now of the date so that you could plan to attend.

CONTRACT "REOPENER" PROPOSALS
This past Spring SSA notified HR that we intended to utilize the section of our contract referred to as "Reopeners" so that we could bargain regarding the issue of benefits.  Following discussion we agreed to wait until we had better information about the actual rate increase of the health plans.  Based upon the amount of the increases and the need to try to negotiate a better contribution rate on behalf of our members for health plans,  SSA has presented our initial bargaining proposal to the District, and we expect it to be presented to the Board of Education at the October 19 Board meeting.  Following the requirement for "sunshining" the proposal; i.e., accepting public comment and review, we expect to begin Reopener negotiations.  In addition, our full contract expires in June, 2012 and we are preparing to begin negotiations with the district this winter or the early part of the upcoming year so that we can get a good start on negotiations in advance of the expiration of the contract.

OPEN ENROLLMENT
The Open Enrollment period for signing up for or changing benefits is October 10 - November 4, 2011.  Please watch for flyers and posters and announcements from the District.  In addition, the benefit Health Fair is scheduled for Saturday, October 22, from 9 a.m. to noon at Helms Middle School

125 Plan Options
If you have not already taken advantage of the 125 Plan option to treat your benefit costs with "pre-tax" dollars, you can do so now. 
Contact Emily Millar in H.R. for more information about this option that can save you money.

SSA EMail Address
Our SSA email address has been changed to ssamail1977@yahoo.com
Our mailing address is SSA, P.O. Box 21264, El Sobrante, CA 94820