Ansonia school officials will meet with dozens of special education instructional assistants this week to fill them in on a plan to outsource their jobs to a private company.
The move will save the school district roughly $100,000, according to school officials.
Meetings are scheduled for Tuesday (Aug. 5) and Friday (Aug. 8) to inform the employees on the change. School officials say everyone currently employed as special education instructional assistants will have the opportunity to keep their jobs, though they could face pay cuts once the new company takes over.
$100,000 In Savings
The idea — to outsource the hiring of the school district’s special education instructional assistants, who help teachers with students requiring extra attention — came up during a discussion about special education at the school board’s July 9 meeting.
According to the minutes of the July 9 meeting, Superintendent Carol Merlone told the school board that the school district has 49 special education instructional assistants, 15 of which were hired through a third party firm, Delta‑T Group, a healthcare referral service company.
According to the minutes, the instructional assistants employed by the school board earned between $11.84 and $28 per hour. Delta‑T “recommended” paying them $17.32 per hour across the board.
If the board hired all 49 through the company, Merlone said, the switch could save the perennially cash-starved district roughly $100,000.
According to an Aug. 1 memo written by James Gaskins, the school district’s business administrator, Delta‑T later reduced their proposed rate from $17.32 per hour to $17 per hour.
The school district will also save money on payroll-related taxes and expenses, as well as save time on interviewing and posting jobs, Gaskins pointed out in the memo, again ball-parking the estimated savings at about $100,000.
The school district will “retain all rights to managerial placement and assignments,” the memo noted.
The July meeting minutes say Gaskins was to email more details about the cost savings to board members, after which they would vote via email on whether to proceed.
Article continues after the July 9 meeting minutes.
Letters signed by Merlone and Kathie Gabrielson, the school district’s director of special education, went out to the affected employees July 29.
“In order to manage our growing special needs population in a both caring and financially feasible manner, Ansonia Public Schools has decided to contract with Delta T group to refer instructional assistants for the upcoming 2014 – 2015 school year,” the letter says.
Current instructional assistant employed by the district “will have the opportunity to transition to Delta T Group if they choose,” the letter says, listing two “Welcome Sessions” at Ansonia Middle School.
William Nimons, the school board’s president, said July 31 the move makes sense financially.
“You have to figure out what the best use of our dollars are since we don’t have a ton of them,” Nimons said. “If we can save $100,000 we can provide better services to students.”
“If it works, it works,” he said. “If it doesn’t work next year we’ll revisit it.”
Procedural Questions
Nimons said July 31 that members of the school board voted by email to approve the Delta‑T agreement.
But he said he couldn’t remember the tally of the vote, so the Valley Indy emailed Merlone and Gaskins asking for the information.
Merlone was out of state July 31, but called Nimons that day to tell him the school board had to vote on the issue in person, not by email.
School officials then held a special meeting Friday (Aug. 1), during which they unanimously approved a contract with Delta‑T for the 2014 – 2015 school year.
However, proper public notice of the meeting was not given under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, which requires meeting agendas be posted at least 24 hours in advance.
The requirement is meant to ensure members of the public are given enough time to know about meetings at which public agencies make decisions on their behalf.
The school board missed the 24-hour requirement for its Friday meeting by about two hours, as shown by a timestamp in the town clerk’s office.
Thomas Hennick, a spokesman for the Freedom of Information Commission, said in an email Monday (Aug. 4) that the school board’s notice of the meeting didn’t provide the public with adequate notice.
“Unless the timestamp was late, it looks like the BOE missed the 24-hour requirement by a couple hours,” Hennick said.
Also, the school district didn’t post notice of the meeting on the school district’s website until Friday morning, about six hours before the meeting.
If a person were to file a complaint about the meeting with the Freedom of Information Commission, the commission could declare any actions taken by the school board at that meeting “null and void,” according to the FOI Act.
Merlone said Monday she’d look into the issue and, if necessary, will call for another special meeting with proper notice given to the public.
“If we are in error I will most definitely correct that by having another meeting,” she said. “If in fact we (gave) fewer than 24 hours (notice), I will correct that.”
John Marini, the city’s corporation counsel, said Monday evening that “the meeting will be considered invalid and a make-up meeting is being scheduled.”
Click here to see agendas and minutes posted on the Board of Education’s website.
Update Aug. 5, 9 p.m.: A special meeting has since been scheduled for Thursday (Aug. 7) at 1 p.m. in the school district’s central office, 42 Grove St. Click here to read the agenda.
But if the school board didn’t approve the outsourcing until Friday’s meeting, why were letters sent out to affected employees three days earlier saying the decision had been made?
Merlone said the letters were sent to employees in anticipation of the Board of Education approving the switch “proactively for people to become aware in the event the board voted for this.”
She said school officials wanted to give the affected employees as much notice of the possible switch as they could, given the fact there are only a few weeks until school starts again.
