The district says the change is needed as staff are currently being paid ahead of days they have not yet worked. The total amount of money paid will not change, and the number of pay dates will not change, but the timeline in which staff are paid will change.
The staff unions say the change, which was announced last week, negatively impacts their members. People have bills to pay, and even if the money gets made up later, it may not help someone’s credit score after they missed a payment, union leaders say.
The board approved a change to pay staff who wanted to work before school starts, with the district offering to pay for teachers who want to decorate classrooms or do modules. Superintendent David Lawrence said the academic and operations teams put together a list of things that people could do that they could get paid for.
“We are working to be as collaborative as possible, and then turn this into a positive, because it was something that came up very quickly upon us,” said Akisha Shehee, DPS chief academic officer.
The board president, Chrisondra Goodwine, said the union members were told of the change after a policy was changed last October. But union leaders say they were never told of the change, even during recent contract negotiations with the teachers’ union.
“What has transpired in the last week has put my members in a difficult situation, financially, mentally and physically,” Dayton Education Association president Neil Mahoney said.
Kenny Jones, president of the paraprofessional’s union at DPS, said the union heads were not aware of the situation before this all started.
“It should never have happened like that,” Jones said. “People are so confused.”
Union leaders tried to answer questions outside of the meeting afterwards, but both Jones and Mahoney said they couldn’t answer all of them because they didn’t know the answers.
Teachers said they were worried about paying their bills and making sure they have insurance.
Board member Eric Walker said the change was needed to correct a past problem where staff were being paid for work they hadn’t yet done. But Will Smith, another board member, said while that was true, there was a right and wrong time to make the change. Smith said he wanted more information out there to show what people could do to earn additional pay and if there is a cap on additional hours.
“Just go to work,” Walker said toward the end of the meeting. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand why people don’t want to go to work.”
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