Auburn education technicians, support staff and teachers gather Tuesday at Auburn Middle School. Auburn ed techs and secretaries plan to speak at the school committee meeting Wednesday to call on the district to return to the bargaining table and negotiate their contract. Front row from left are Emily Chamberlain, Catherine Ramey, Bano Yanger, Cassandra Smith and Erica West. Second row: Lori Duplissis, Donna Barnies, Bonnie Morin, Aubrey Merritt, Albert Yanger, Linda Pepitone, Brei Tyler and Dylan Jalbert. Third row: Diana Carson, Roberta O’Neil, Megan Freitas, Alexa Viscardi, Meghan Laprise, Nicole Gora, Robert Ballard, and Warren Leunig. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

AUBURN — Stagnating wages, limited health insurance coverage and frequent use of education technicians as substitute teachers with little to no compensation are the issues stalling a new contract for the district’s ed techs and secretaries.

The current contract for about 100 staff members expired Aug. 31. Efforts for a new contract came to a halt about 10 days later. The group is planning to attend Wednesday’s school committee meeting to urge the district officials to return to the bargaining table.

“Over the 3-year term of the current contract, inflation has exceeded 14% but the wage scales have only increased 3% for ed techs and 4% for secretaries,” said Tim Schick, director at Maine Education Association. “This has created a situation that makes it difficult to attract and retain employees.”

At the beginning of talks for a new contract, the district was offering increases of 2%, 2% and 1% for each year in a 3-year contract, Schick said. To make up for inflation, workers sought raises of 3%, 5% and 5% for each year.

“Step increases (after each year) reward employees for experience. They don’t account for inflation. Because of inflation, employees at any particular step have less purchasing power than a person at that same step a year ago,” Schick noted.

Another point of disagreement between ed techs and the district was health insurance coverage for dependents. “This district only provides ed techs individual coverage for medical insurance. They must pay for dependent coverage out of their own pocket,” Schick said. However, dependent coverage is available for secretaries, he added.

Even with years of experience, many ed techs struggle to make ends meet with their current wages.

Katreena Meserve has been an ed tech in the district for the past eight years. She and many of her coworkers have taken up second jobs.

“I thankfully have a husband who works full time,” Meserve said. “A lot of our ed techs are single parents. Unfortunately, they do have to take up second jobs. They’re not able to be home with their children as much as they should be because they’re just trying to make ends meet,” she continued.

Meserve has a second job to help with her family’s finances despite the demanding nature of her job.

“I work in a self-contained behavior program. I assist the classroom teacher in direct instruction of students, small groups, one-on-one situations. I assist them at recess time. I basically follow them around anywhere in the building. I attend specials with them, recess, lunch,” Meserve explained. “One of the big things that I do in my position is really help them understand how to function around the general population, socially and emotionally.”

“I do have a supplemental job of the child care. Just to try to help out financially, so that our children can do the extracurricular activities that they have grown up doing,” Meserve added.

Lack of competitive wages creates a number of problems. Many choose to work for neighboring districts with better salaries and benefits, which in turn lowers retention.

“(Lack) of competitive wages definitely affect the quality. We have people in the positions, but we may not necessarily have the highest qualified people,” Meserve said.

“One important thing to note is that, that when you’re trying to get this wage increase, you have the step increase and then the wage increase,” said Warren Leunig, co-vice president of the Auburn Education Association. Leunig is one of the negotiators for the new contract.

“You automatically get a step increase every year, that’s the law. That’s not really part of a raise,” Leunig explained. “You gotta get a decent raise, so we can keep the wage scales competitive with neighboring districts.”

According to Leunig, there’s a significant difference between hourly rates for similar positions in Auburn and Lewiston. “In Auburn, ed tech 1 starting pay is $15.45. Ed tech 2 starting pay is $16.62. Just across the river in Lewiston, ed tech 2 starts at $18.01,” Leunig said.

“I’ve heard stories about people that were interested in coming from Lewiston to work as an ed tech in Auburn and they declined because the difference in pay was so much,” Leunig said.

“A lot of our ed techs, a fair number of ed techs and secretaries, they make so little pay. They qualify for MaineCare, heating benefits, SNAP. If you’re an ed tech and you want to put your children on your (health insurance) plan, you’d have to pay out of pocket,” Leunig said. “A lot of times, that’s not feasible.”

Responding on behalf of the Auburn School Committee in an email, Chairperson Pamela Albert said the district sees the challenges as merely financial.

“The committee sees the concerns as being financial. There is currently nothing stalling our efforts,” Albert said. “The purpose of mediation is to have the help of a neutral party to come to agreement on the outstanding issues between the two parties.”

“The committee wants a settled contract that is fair to all parties involved — the unit members, the school committee, and the Auburn taxpayers, who approve the school department’s budget,” Albert added. “The school committee must balance the interest of our employees while also remaining good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

According to Albert, the parties will return to the bargaining table one more time on Nov. 7.