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Schools

Plum School Board Members Collide Over Staffing Agency Contract

Some school board members say the district is overpaying for Kelly Services to fill substitute positions, but a vote to dissolve the contract with the agency fails.

Some members were ready to terminate the staffing contract with Kelly Educational Staffing Services at Tuesday's board meeting.

“I’m not happy with Kelly Services,” said board member Loretta White.

The debate over the agency’s effectiveness in filling substitute staffing needs was sparked by a vote to raise the hourly wage for substitute custodians from $8 to $10, and to raise substitute food services workers from $7.50 to $8.

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The board approved the pay increases with a 6-3 vote, with board members White, Tom McGough and Rose McGuirk opposing the increase.

“I think we’re overpaying for services,” White said.

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During the March school board meeting, board members voted 5-4 to charge Kelly Educational Staffing Services with recruiting substitute employees for the 2011-12 school year.

While board member Jeff Russo voted against contracting the agency to fill staffing, he voted in favor of the pay hike. He said the increase is necessary to attract and retain workers for the school district, especially with Penn Hills recently increasing its hourly wage for custodial positions to $10 an hour.

“The object is to get the schools clean," board member Sal Collela said. "We’re heading into the flu season, and we need them in here.”

If Kelly Services thinks a pay increase is necessary to fill staffing needs, White thinks the rate change should come from the agency’s pockets since it is being contracted obtain workers.

“To me, that’s their problem. Let them pay the rate,” she said.

Russo made a motion to add terminating the contract with Kelly Services to the board agenda. While that motion passed, the board voted 5-4 to maintain the contract, with opposition again from White, McGough, McGuirk and Russo.

Russo said he has friends who are on the “ground level” within the school district, “and I’m hearing a lot of bad things about Kelly Services."

White said prior to the contract, the district paid $90 per day for a substitute teacher. Now it pays $122.50.

Prior to the contract, however, the district was also paying for benefits, which Kelly Services now covers.

Finance Committee Chair Andrew Drake says it’s too soon to end the contract.

“It’s early. We’re only 45 days into this to be calling it a failure,” Drake said.

Drake doesn’t think the district is overpaying by contracting the agency to fill positions.

“At worst case we’re breaking even, if not saving,” he said.

“If they can’t fill it now, what are they going to do at the end of the school year?” White asked.

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