For the second month, Milford School District Board of Education tabled a vote on a change to policy for employee vacation schedules. At the August meeting, Dr. Sarah Hale, who formerly served as the district’s CFO, questioned some of the changes to the policy.
“I do have a question on Policy 4320,” Hale said. “I want to say I appreciate adding the years of state service t the vacation approvals. I think that’s a great recruiting tool for those that come from state service. I also support the winter break removal of required. I do have a question, though, on the removal of the 12-month employee good attendance incentive. I know other employee groups do have attendance incentives, and I’m just curious, does this leave an unfair imbalance for 12-month employees?”
The policy provided in the packet removed Policy 4320§11 which provided two additional vacation days if a 12-month employee was absent for less than three days in the prior fiscal year and one additional vacation day if the employee was absent less than four days in the fiscal year. Absences referred to sick or personal days.
“One thing you will notice is that incentives for the other employee groups are actually in the negotiated agreement, so we feel that would be an appropriate place to put such incentives for all employee groups,” Superintendent Travis Moorman said. “So, the removal of bonus vacation days that are given to 12-month employees who do not take sick days would then be looked at.”
Moorman explained that they could not discuss negotiations with other education associations, but that the intention was to revisit the specific categories of 12-month employees.
“It is important to incentivize attendance,” Moorman said. “However, we want to do it in the right way as attendance is an expectation. So, incentives for coming to work since we are supposed to do that, sometimes can be a challenging thing for some individuals. But we will work collaboratively with our education association and most certainly find a way to provide such incentives for all employees.”
Moorman explained that the negotiation cycle was coming up over the upcoming school year. Hale asked about the 12-month employees who were not covered by a collective bargaining agreement. Moorman pointed out this would be incentive for them to join a collective bargaining agreement, but that would be something that could be discussed in further detail. Hale suggested that this policy be tabled.
“I just feel if we’re going to review it for the whole, I can think of a couple examples of 12-month employees that may be impacted by this that are not covered by an agreement and cannot, either because of their position or the expense,” Hale said. “I would prefer that we do this holistically.”
The policy appeared on the September agenda, but Moorman again requested that it be tabled as the district needed more time to discuss the changes with the Milford Education Association as this could impact their contract.
“I did hear from several employees with input and I think it would be beneficial to work through the negotiations process and come back with an agreement with MEA,” Moorman said.
The board voted to approve tabling the policy with a vote of six to zero as member Butch Elzey was absent.
