ELBRIDGE - While the Jordan-Elbridge Central School District and its bus drivers are adept at transporting students from homes to school, they are struggling with the task of finalizing a new contract.

The bus drivers - members of the Civil Service Employees Association union - have been operating without a contract for nine months and internal efforts to negotiate a new contract have ended at an impasse.

The main issue causing the stalemate: health insurance.

In the present contract, which expired June 30, 2007, the district offered a “less competitive wage” but “a lot of health insurance,” schools superintendent Marilyn Dominick said.

The contract provided full health insurance benefits for part-time employment. A transportation employee had to work only 740 hours a year to receive full health and dental insurance benefits, while other district employees had to work a full 2,080 hours a year to get the same benefits, according to a district news release.

That contract was very

costly to the district, Dominick said. Bus drivers' salaries are 85 to 88 percent state aidable as are individual health insurance plans, she said. Family plans are not aidable.

The lower the wage offered by the district, the less state aid it receives.

The district's stance is to raise drivers' wages so that the drivers can purchase health insurance plans of their own, Dominick said. Under this system, independent filers would receive individual coverage and a raise while people with families could afford a good family plan.

CSEA rejected the current offer on the table, asking the district to pick up a piece of the health insurance tab.

“We calculated the proposed wage rate and what we ended up with, after paying for the health insurance, they have nothing left, hardly anything left to pay the bills” Labor Relations Specialist Frank Antonucci said. “It just wouldn't make any sense to accept the proposal. They would have to offer about $30 an hour for that to make sense.”

Both parties have turned to a mediator to settle the stalemate.

Dominick emphasized that neither she nor the district is looking at contracting outside the district for transportation, but, “If I can't make a more efficient system, I have to look at everything,” she said. “Including that.”

CSEA is willing to contribute 5 or 10 percent more to health insurance premiums, but the district didn't move, he said.

“The district is just not budging, and I think it's a slap in the face to the bus drivers who live in the community and pay taxes in the community and are probably one of the lowest paid in the area,” he said. “(The district is) asking them to pay the most for health insurance and it's a slap in the face and it's wrong.”

But this is not the only grievance CSEA is harboring. Earlier this month the union filed an improper practice charge for bad faith bargaining against the district.

CSEA maintains the district negotiated a contract with a bus driver who is a CSEA member but not recognized on the negotiating team, Antonucci said.

They are seeking a cease and desist order to prevent the district from negotiating again with this individual or anyone else outside the negotiating team.

“What it does is undermine the negotiating team or even the union as a whole,” he said. “It just undermines our efforts and our power.”

Dominick declined to comment on the issue. She said lawyers are involved and will consult with the district on the next move.

The improper practice charge notwithstanding, Dominick said there is reason to be positive.

“We're talking. That's the good news,” she said. The next mediation meeting will be on March 31.

“We have fine people in our transportation department and we want it to be a good situation for our children first and everybody else second.”

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 239 or alyssa.sunkin@lee.net