BOARD TO VOTE ON PAY HIKES NONTEACHING POSTS AT KEPPEL AFFECTED.

Byline: Marci Wormser Staff Writer

LITTLEROCK - Keppel Union School District trustees will decide Thursday whether to increase the pay and benefits of some 200 nonteaching employees.

The district's approximately 200 classified employees, or nonteaching staff, and three or four confidential employees, or administrative clerks, will get a one-quarter percent pay raise, a 1 percent bonus and full benefits retroactive to July 1, 2002, Superintendent Thomas Niekamp said.

``This brings all of our employees up to the same level over a two-year period,'' Niekamp said. ``The classified, certificated and confidential employees would all be at the same level.''

Teachers, or certificated employees, reached a contract agreement with district administrators late last year after more than one year of negotiations, Niekamp said. After negotiations with the teachers union failed a state mediator was called in after a summer impasse to help the two sides reach agreement.

The teachers agreed to a 2 percent retroactive pay hike for last year and a 1 percent bonus in lieu of a raise this year. The teachers will continue to receive full medical benefits during the 2002-03 school year, Niekamp said.

In October, the classified employees got a retroactive 1.75 percent salary raise and a $47 bonus for the 2001-02 academic year.

Confidential employees, who do not have a contract and who do not have bargaining rights, would receive the same salary raise and benefits as the classified employees, Niekamp said.

Niekamp said the cost of living adjustment for the 2002-03 school year was about 2 percent. However, the rising cost of health care benefits and Gov. Gray Davis' midyear cuts to education are responsible for the lack of a more sizable pay raise for employees, he said.