By Andrea Arens
At a special board meeting on April 24, the Peotone School Board approved the union contract but not unanimously.
Board member Tim Stoub asked if the finance committee had a chance to look at the annual financial impact of the Union Teachers Contract. Board President Tara Robinson said the contract had been negotiated over the last seven months, and board members have had the contract since April 5 and no questions had arisen. She further stated the finance committee had not reviewed the contract.
Business manager Adrian Fulgencio said a financial impact was completed during negotiations and could be emailed to Stoub.
Without that financial impact report in hand, Stoub voted no to the union contract for 2023-2027, classified staff increases, and substitute pay increases.
The union teachers contract is a 7.68 percent increase for an additional $475,844 for the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
Stoub was the lone no vote on those increases but a vote to increase administrators salaries, including a new dean/athletic director position, by just over 5.5 percent was approved unanimously.
The boiler at Peotone Elementary had a steam leak over the weekend and caused school to be canceled for elementary students both Monday and Tuesday. It was the second leak in less than three months in the same area of the building and affected the same classrooms.
Stein has contacted the architect, and he’s expecting to put together a plan to remedy the situation for the board to review.
Stein suggested, ideally, the tunnel structure underneath the school that houses the steam pipes be abandoned and another system put in place.
He said, “That’s going to be a very expensive issue.”
Stein is concerned that it’ll be another heat season before the situation can be remedied.
All three schools, Peotone Elementary, Peotone Intermediate, and Peotone Junior High have aging boiler systems in need of updating. Updating the boiler systems was a targeted expense item had the referendum passed in 2020.