Published: October 21, 2009 12:55 am      

NEWFANE: Stipend draws ire from union

SCHOOLS: Appointment covers larger workload due to federal grant administration, district says.

NEWFANE — Some members of the community in the Newfane School District are not happy about an appointment made Tuesday.

The Board of Education appointed Sharon Smith as Carol M. White grant administrator, a position that carries a $10,000 stipend for the year. The Carol M. White grant is a federal program that gives school districts money for physical education programming. Awarded to Newfane earlier in the year, the grant is highly competitive and pays out just under $500,000 over three years.

Some members of the Civil Service Employees Association, Local 872, Unit 7695 attended Tuesday’s meeting and spoke against the appointment. Members were unhappy that they have been working without a contract for more than two years while the district is giving a person compensation for performing extra work.

Kelli Pines, a CSEA member, said at the meeting that workers have been on the job without any raise. Yet, the workers do take on extra job duties, like some CSEA members who will be working on the grant.

“And we are not compensated,” she said.

The CSEA has about 90 members who work in the district in a number of positions such as clerical and maintenance, while about two thirds of the members in Newfane live within the school district. The workers are currently in negotiations with the district over a new contract.

Resident and former board member Carl Stieffenhofer said he did not understand how one person could receive the stipend. It should be spread around to the people who will be working on different aspects of the grant, he said.

“Why one person who tells someone to do something gets $10,000 and the people who do it is beyond me,” Stieffenhofer said.

Superintendent Gary Pogorzelski said the appointment was one of the federal guidelines for the grant. An administrator in the district had to be appointed to the position, which brings an additional workload of about two to three hours a day to the appointee.

“We’re dealing with the federal government and that is a lot of bureaucracy,” Pogorzelski said. “I’ve never seen so much paperwork for a grant before. And I have done a lot of grants in my 35 years.”

Smith is also the assistant principal at the Newfane Early Childhood Center and serves as Newfane’s district grant writer. The grant administrator appointment runs from Sept. 1, 2009, through Aug. 31, 2010.

In other district news, the board accepted the results of an annual audit by Lumsden and McCormick of Buffalo. Pogorzelski said the audit, which looked at the district’s financial activity, found Newfane’s finances were in line.

“We are very happy with the results,” he said.

Contact reporter Joe Olenick at 439-9222, ext. 6241.