Although Union Public Schools are empty of students and teachers, with many preparing to being holding classes online until at least April 17, the district’s food service workers are still cooking, and the Board of Trustee made sure their efforts do not go unnoticed.
In a Board of Trustees meeting Thursday, which was relocated to the high school library to allow trustees to practice social distancing, Superintendent Tyler Hansford asked the board for authority to designate essential and nonessential employees due to the corona virus outbreak.
“I don’t know if you guys have had the chance to read the governor’s executive order related to this closure, but they’ve asked us to designate essential and nonessential,” he said. “I’m just asking you guys to let me do that.”
Gov. Tate Reeves signed Executive Order 1458 Thursday directing government agencies to designate which employees were nonessential and send them home with pay.
Hansford said nonessential employees is a misnomer in Union Schools as all employees do their part to further the students’ education; however, he said the most essential employees had to include certified teachers and the cafeteria workers.
“In my opinion, everyone who works here is essential because when you run a lean budget, you wouldn’t have them if they weren’t essential,” he said. “But, what we’re looking at is all our cafeteria staff have to stay because the governor has mandated serving those meals.”
Up until Thursday, Hansford said, non-certified staff had continued to work regular hours, but they had been told that would end due to the governor’s order.
“We did tell them today to go and everyone was going to be on administrative pay,” he said.
There is still work to be done, however, and some of the noncertified staff will be needed, Hansford said. Around 30 percent of UPSD students do not have reliable internet access and will need paper packets of all their coursework.
“We’re going to let them work some hours to do that, stapling those packets, get them ready and so on and so forth,” he said. “So what we’ll do is figure out who wants to work, and later on I’m going to ask you to approve a special pay rate for those who want to work.”
Hansford said it was a matter of fairness. While all nonessential staff will be paid, those who choose to work should be paid more than those sitting at home. He said he also would ask the trustees to approve a special pay rate for the cafeteria staff as well.
“It’s not fair that they’re required to work to earn their pay, while others are not required to do anything and earn the same pay,” he said.
For cafeteria workers, Hansford asked the board double their current rate of pay. Currently, the pay averages about $8.30/hour, he said, which would double to around $16.60/hour.
“Remember the cafeteria is funded out of its own fund,” he said. “Right now, it’s just like summer feeding, so we’re collecting extra reimbursements on the meals they’re preparing, so I don’t think it’s going to put us in any sort of financial hardship, and I think it will be a good incentive for those ladies and the one gentleman to continue to do that work.”
Hansford requested 1.5 times pay for nonessential employees who choose to work. The rate of pay would rise from an average of $10/hour to $15/hour, he said.
“Should we flip them back over and make them essential for the purpose of making copies or whatever, we’d pay them time and a half,” he said. “They’re rate of pay is a little bit higher, and that comes out of district money and they’re not going to be working as many hours as the cafeteria is.”
The additional funds to pay nonessential employees would be taken from docked pay funds the district has accumulated over several years, Hansford said.
