ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The Allentown School Board recently approved a new food services union contract, but the district has not released the cost to taxpayers or the terms.
The five-year contract was unanimously approved at the school board’s Nov. 16 meeting. But the agenda did not include a copy of the contract or the terms of the agreement.
While school district Solicitor Jeffrey Sultanik said during the meeting that Pennsylvania Joint Board Workers United Service Employees International Union Local 391A had ratified the contract, the school board agenda said approval was “subject to solicitor and administration approval on final wording.”
“Voting on a contract where they haven't told the public what's in the contract interferes with the public's statutory right to have a voice in the decision-making process before decisions are made."Melissa Melewsky, in-house counsel with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association
Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said the draft contract, along with its terms, should have been available for public review prior to the vote.
On Tuesday, LehighValleyNews.com requested the terms of the new contract from the school district administration but did not receive it prior to the publication of this report.
Melewsky said it should have been made available to the public days ago.
“Voting on a contract where they haven't told the public what's in the contract interferes with the public's statutory right to have a voice in the decision-making process before decisions are made,” Melewsky said. “How could they have provided a meaningful public comment if they had no idea what was being voted on? It doesn't make any sense.”
Dotting i's, crossing t's
Sultanik clarified Tuesday that the terms are final and the wording of the agenda item refers only to small changes like correcting commas and making changes to amounts by $1.
“We're just dotting the i's and crossing the t's on the documents,” he said.
Melewsky said the final language of the union contract should have been worked out before the school board voted on it, with it made available for public review at or before the meeting.
“Ultimately, the board is supposed to authorize the terms of the contract, not say will authorize the solicitor and the administrators to dot all the i's and cross all the t's,” Melewsky said. “That should be done before the vote takes place because it's the board who exercises authority.”
School board President Audrey Mathison did not respond to a request for comment.
A short description on the Nov. 16 agenda said the new food service union contract runs through June 2027 and is retroactive to July 2022. Requests for comment to the union received no response.
Prior contracts
School district food service workers crowded into school board meetings earlier this year to advocate for a contract and for better working conditions. They claimed at the time that the district was eliminating food service positions.
“Nobody cares about us, even though we do a lot for the students,” South Mountain Middle School kitchen helper Aliena Kates told board members in the spring. “Not only do we feed them and we tried to accommodate, you know, health issues, diets and stuff like that and we still never get appreciated [for] what we do and everything we do."
“It's retroactive to 2022, so there's probably a significant amount of money being involved here."Melissa Melewsky, in-house counsel with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association
The last contract with the food services union, Pennsylvania Joint Board Workers United Service Employees International Union Local 391A, was for three years, from July 2019 to June 2022.
Under that agreement, a middle or high school cook's pay rose from $29,850 in 2019-20 to $30,447 in 20-21 and $31,056 in 21-22. An elementary school cook’s salary increased from $28,820 in the first year to $29,396 in the second and $29,984 in the last year.
In 2016, 150 cafeteria workers received an average wage hike of 3.25% per year, under that three-year contract with the school board. That meant a full-time elementary school cook earned $26,505 in the first year, $27,366 in year two, and $28,255 in 2018-19.
Melewsky said the school district should reveal the contract, including the new terms.
“It's retroactive to 2022, so there's probably a significant amount of money being involved here,” she said. “There should be details available about what was approved.”
