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‘A smack in the face’: SAU 6 bonuses frozen due to lack of evaluation system

By Patrick Adrian
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
CLAREMONT — Performance pay bonuses for SAU 6 will remain frozen due to the lack of an adequate employee evaluation system to ensure accountability and transparency, according to the SAU 6 School Board.

On Thursday, the SAU 6 School Board rejected a draft of an employee evaluation plan submitted by Superintendent Michael Tempesta that would have determined one-time compensation bonuses to SAU 6 employees.

In 2019 the SAU School Board approved a merit pay incentive plan that would reward SAU employees with a one-time pay increase for “performing at a high level,” or “above and beyond” the person’s outlined expectations.

According to board members, the plan was supposed to include a formal evaluation system to determine the employees who earned a pay bonus and the amount.

While an evaluation plan was documented at the time of approval, those documents only became known to Tempesta during this school year.

“When I came here, I didn’t even know there was a merit pool,” Tempesta told the board.

In the previous school years, Tempesta said he gave every employee a bonus of equal rate, or based on the same percentage of a person’s total salary.

The board, while permitting that practice during the pandemic, has suspended further distribution of pay bonuses until the board approves a performance evaluation system.

“If we can’t do it fairly and justifiably, then we are doing it wrong,” said board member Steven Horsky. “Then it becomes a smack in the face to employees, because you can have [one person] who is working their tail off getting the same as [another person] who is slacking off and spending time at the water cooler.”

However, the evaluation documents drafted in 2019 failed to satisfy SAU board members, who said their content fell well short of an acceptable evaluation plan.

The presented documents included a three-page employee performance rubric and a one page overview of the plan’s implementation.

Board members felt these documents lacked critical details and components, such as a clear timeline of implementation, the incorporation of employee self-evaluations, and a formula for scoring employee reviews.

Board members expressed frustration over the lack of a plan this late, especially this far in the school year.

“It’s frustrating when we actually support the employees and the idea of the initiative, but we’re put in a position where we have to accept something that we don’t find acceptable in order to show support for employees,” Heather Whitney said.

Whitney stressed that she wants to see district and SAU employees to be fairly compensated, but this particular fund, which predates her election to the board, was not intended to make wages more competitive.

“I strongly feel that most of the employees in the district are underpaid,” Whitney said. “So it’s not that the value of the employee is in question. For me, it’s that we have had issues in the administration with process, with us asking for things to be done, to be fleshed out and presented to us in a palatable form. And we don’t get that.”

Whitney noted that, without an evaluation system, this fund would start becoming perceived as a guaranteed wage adjustment, rather than a one-time bonus.

“If the administration really wants to support its employees, then advocate either for higher wages for them or develop a system that the board can approve and feel really comfortable approving,” Whitney told administrators.

The board voted to table the discussion until the board’s next meeting on Thursday, May 19.

Prior to tabling the item, the board voted on a motion to allow the administration to pay the employees bonuses of up to 1.5 percent of their total salaries this school year, on the provision that the administration delivers a fully developed evaluation plan by the end of the fiscal year. That motion failed to pass, with the vote resulting in a 5-5 tie.

Tabling the discussion hypothetically enables the school board to reconsider the merit pay at its next meeting, though it may hinge on the administration’s ability to develop an acceptable plan by then.

The merit pool fund currently holds $34,954.35, none of which has been spent. If the board does not approve their use, the funds will return to the taxpayers at the end of the fiscal year on July 1.

The approved merit pool budget for next school year is $36,373, which would enable pay bonuses of up to three percent per employee on average. However, spending of those funds will also depend upon the board’s approval of an evaluation system.

SAU 6, which provides shared services to the Claremont and Unity school districts, is composed of approximately 12 employees, including the superintendent, administrators and support staff.

The Eagle Times attempted to reach Tempesta and Operations and Finance Director Richard Seaman by email for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

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