Ansonia’s Board of Education unanimously approved a contract Thursday (Aug. 7) to outsource the hiring of 50 instructional assistants for the 2014 – 2015 school year.
The school board made the move, members said, because it will save them between $85,000 and $100,000.
Click the video to watch a meeting where school officials explain the issue.
The board had met for a special meeting Aug. 1 to approve the contract, but that meeting was invalidated because notice that it would occur was not posted 24 hours before the meeting, a violation of state Freedom of Information law.
Click here for a previous story.
So Thursday’s meeting was a do-ever, essentially.
After calling the meeting to order — and making sure the agenda of the meeting was posted at least 24 hours beforehand with the city clerk — Board of Education President William Nimons asked Assistant Superintendent Michael Wilson to review the school district’s proposed agreement with Delta‑T Group, a healthcare referral service company.
The school district used the company in the 2013 – 2014 to fill 15 slots for special education instructional assistants.
The 15 assistants hired through the company cost the school district $19 per hour.
The assistants the school district hired directly were paid in a range from $11.84 to $28 per hour.
Superintendent Carol Merlone said that Delta‑T approached Kathie Gabrielson, the school district’s director of special education, with a proposal to hire all of the special education instructional assistants through the company.
Their proposal was to pay $17.32 across the board, which they later reduced to $17.
She said she then directed James Gaskins, the school district’s business administrator, to crunch the numbers on whether the schools would save money going to Delta‑T.
He ball-parked the possible savings at about $100,000.
Article continues after memo Gaskins wrote to school officials, followed by the contract with Delta‑T.
Delta‑T BOE Handout With Agreement
During Thursday’s meeting Wilson highlighted may of the points, namely:
- The school district will also save on payroll taxes and processing.
- School officials will have 50 fewer time cards to review and process.
- School administrators will save time they would have otherwise spent interviewing and hiring new assistants.
The company held two “Welcome Sessions” with the school district’s three dozen or so special education instructional assistants last week.
School officials said current employees would be given job offers with Delta‑T, albeit with the possibility of a pay cut for those who were making more than $17 per hour.
Wilson and Merlone stressed that the school district still has some control over the assistants.
“We still retain all managerial placement rights,” Wilson said. “So if we indeed like a certain person to work with a child, Delta‑T will follow our recommendations, as well as if an employee is not up to par in terms of working with a child as seen by a building administrator, then we would contact Delta‑T and that person would be removed from service in Ansonia.”
“They assured us that children who have specific individuals working with them, the position would not change,” Merlone said.
She said the move made sense because it saves time and money and the school district has worked well with Delta‑T before.
“We do have difficulty filling those 15 positions, so we go to them all the time and they fill them for us, and we’ve had success with them,” Merlone said.
Nimons said the move was a good one.
“We’re trying to save as much money as we can within our budget so we have more money to spread around to regular ed,” he said.
During the meeting’s public session, Lorie Vaccaro, a Second Ward Alderman, asked the school board if the company had proper screening procedures in place.
He referred to the case of a Bridgeport school run by a charter school management company, the CEO of which had lied about having a doctorate and had criminal convictions on his record.
The same company also hired a man on the state of Texas’ sex offender registry.
Click here for a story from the Connecticut Post.
“Do they check all 50 states or just Connecticut?” Vaccaro asked.
Merlone assured Vaccaro no sex offenders would be hired in Ansonia schools.
