On Contracts, School Committee Says Yes to Nurses, No to Supervisors

School Committeeman Paul A. Magliocchetti served on the contract committee that negotiated a draft agreement with the Supervisory and Administrative Group.

Haverhill School Committeewoman Susan D. Danehy.

Haverhill School Committeewoman Susan D. Danehy.

Haverhill School Committee handed down split decisions Thursday on separate collective bargaining agreements for school administrators and school nurses.

Committee members unanimously approved a three-year agreement with the Massachusetts Nurses Association, on behalf of Haverhill school nurses, retroactive to July, 2014. However, a tentative agreement for the same period with the district’s Supervisory and Administrative Group failed by a 4 to 3 final vote against. Negotiating committee members Paul A. Magliocchetti and Susan D. Danehy were joined in support of the administrators’ agreement by Mayor James J. Fiorentini, committee chairman, after he changed his initial choice to abstain. Committee President Scott W. Wood Jr. said he was concerned about fairness in creating a new “step five” salary tier next July.

School Committee President Scott W. Wood Jr.

School Committee President Scott W. Wood Jr.

“The net effective raise for some, if you do the raises, could be around three percent which isn’t out of line. However, depending where they are on the chart, that percentage could go up to six, seven or even higher depending on where they were, when they came in,” Wood said. “For that reason, because of how far some people can get up the chart, I don’t think it’s equitable with everybody across the district if we’re talking about a six percent raise for some people.”

Magliocchetti called negotiations for the administrative group “one of the most difficult.” He noted negotiations had continued after the previous contract came out of arbitration.

“We ended up approving something that no one was really 100 percent happy with, but we had to get a contract in place because of where we were in the arbitration process. The district has a very hard time retaining people in this particular area and that has to be in our minds. When you look at their pay scale relative to where the teachers are and relative to where the principals are, we felt this was fair and equitable,” Magliocchetti said.

The proposed “step five” salary tier would have been set at $2,500 above the “step four” pay scale.

3 thoughts on “On Contracts, School Committee Says Yes to Nurses, No to Supervisors