By Tom Tolen / news@whmi.com


All Brighton Area Schools union contracts are now settled for the 20-21 year after approval of wage re-openers with two school district bargaining units by the Brighton Board of Education.

At its virtual meeting Monday night, the board unanimously ratified the wage and salary reopener portions of separate contracts with the Brighton Education Support Personnel Association and the Brighton Area Schools Administrators Association. The contract reopener has already been approved by the two collective bargaining units. The board had previously ratified a salary reopener with the Brighton Education Association, the district's 325-member teachers' union.

BESPA includes about 65 building secretaries, maintenance personnel, mechanics, paraprofessionals and food service employees, whereas BASAA involves about 20 school principals, grade level principals, department heads and directors. Central office administrators - which include Superintendent of Schools Matthew Outlaw and the assistant superintendents for finance, instructional services and labor relations & personnel - are not part of that group and their contracts are considered separately.

The sole aspect of the re-openers is 2% wage/salary hikes for members of the two units, with the pay increases retroactive through Sept. 1st of last year. The contracts were originally scheduled to be ratified in December, but, according to board policy, items must be on the agenda twice: the first time as a “for future action” item in order for discussion to take place and the second time as an action item. Since the board met only once in December, it had to be brought back to the table for final action in January.

The contracts will be in effect through August 31st of this year.