First Posted: 2/16/2015
LIMA — After Allen East’s school board meeting last month, it seemed the storm of salary negations had finally blown through.
Rhonda Zimmerly, the board ’s treasurer, seemed optimistic, saying the district had officially instated a 1 percent increase in pay for its 64 teachers on staff and began drafting contracts.
But it seemed the Allen East Education Association had other plans after it filed a complaint against the Allen East Board of Education. The board was notified of the complaint Friday night, said Mel Rentschler, the district’s superintendent. The association sent out a news release Monday, announcing the charges.
Though the board doesn’t have too much information at this point, Rentschler said the association’s actions “were expected” and “a part of the normal process.”
“I’m surprised it took them this long,” he said.
According the release, the board is accused of unfair labor practices and discrimination “based on the board’s refusal to bargain in good faith” and that the board discriminated and retaliated against the union and its members after employing Ohio Revised Code rights.
The charges, filed with the State Employment Relations Board, serve as a response to the board’s “ultimate impasse” on Dec. 8, voting to implement the final terms and conditions of employment contracts, which had been a source of dispute between the two organizations for more than five months.
Rentschler said that the board has “already moved on” since the negotiations ended.
“We think we gave them a fair deal,” he said.
He also said that the board has no plans at this point to include the issue in the agenda for the month’s meeting Feb. 25.
“There’s nothing else to discuss,” Rentschler said.
Though unavailable for comment Monday, in a previous statement sent to The Lima News, Terri Spencer, the spokeswoman for the education association, and other association members, voiced their discontent with the impasse.
“It seems as though we are being punished for doing a great job,” Spencer wrote in the statement. “Money is not really the issue. The issue is respect. Obviously, this Board has no respect for their teachers.”
At the time, Spencer said the association had no plans to strike.
As an affiliate of the Ohio Education Association, the Allen East Education Association serves as a representative of all teaching staff at Allen East schools and is being represented by Kalniz, Iorio & Feldstein C0., a law firm in Toledo.
Officials from the Allen East Education Association and Kalniz, Iorio & Feldstein Co. did not return phone calls Monday.
