North Syracuse (WSYR-TV) – 11 unions in the North Syracuse School District agreed to several concessions in an effort to ease the tax burden on their community. The union's move will enable the district to save 15 positions.
Most of the concessions they made involved their health care plan. They say the concessions will save the school district $1.2 million.
Employees in the district – including teachers, teaching assistants, maintenance workers, bus drivers, office staff, and administrators – agreed to change their drug plan, which will now use a mandatory generic drug script as well as mail-order for all maintenance drugs.
In addition, the union agreed to change the benefits for member that are 65 and older who are using MVP. They will be moved to an MVP Gold plan, which is a subsidized, enhanced plan.
Neither change will cost members more, but they will change the way that they access chemicals.
The union says it has provided $5 million in savings to taxpayers over the past seven years.
"When you reflect back on the need for the concessions, knowing that the savings are going to bring class sizes back down to more - we would hope to say, more reasonable levels - that by far gets people to look at the concessions as much more reasonable,” said North Syracuse Education Association President John Kuryla.
In addition to saving the teaching positions, the move will enable the district to reduce class sizes along with scheduling challenges at Cicero-North Syracuse High Scool.
"Not only are we going to lower class size K-9 but we're also going to resolve to some extent some of the scheduling challenges we're facing in the high school,” said North Syracuse Superintendent Jerry Melvin.
Melvin says not only will this help the district with next year's budget it will also save them money down the line for future budgets, which he anticipates will still have issues.
"We understand what our community is going through and we're trying to make every effort to meet them,” Kuryla said.
