SCHENECTADY City’s crossing guards awarded pay raise BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
The city’s crossing guards will be getting a raise, the City Council decided. And the guards who stand outside in snow and rain will also get a bonus every quarter if they come to work instead of calling in sick when the weather is uncomfortable. The council members will vote next week on the measure, which they passed out of committee unanimously Monday. The council also agreed to hold a public hearing that would make property owners responsible for trash dumped off the edge of their property onto public property. The new law will be discussed at City Hall on Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. “Hopefully this will get at the problem we have on 890,” Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden said. Last year the city removed 55 tons of trash from the unstable hill above I-890. One area where trash has been a problem is in the vicinity of the Church of St. Adalbert. Van Norden said he suspects people unaffiliated with the church are dumping trash from the church property onto the embankment. He wants the church to fence that area off. Trash also appears to collect on the embankment behind many residences near the church. Commissioner of General Services Carl Olsen also pleaded with dumpers to stop throwing heavy items onto the hill. “The bank is unstable,” he said. “Anyone dumping over it, particularly if they own the house above it, is jeopardizing the foundation of their house.” On the crossing guard issue, Councilman Mark Blanchfield said the council had planned to give out raises in January. But after resident Vince Riggi, whose wife is a crossing guard, publicly complained about the pay, Blanchfield proposed making the raises effective immediately. Guards would be paid $10 an hour, up from $8.65. The city has enough money for the raises this year because some guards’ hours were cut in half this year. Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said the hours were cut because police determined that the guards were only needed for a short time at certain intersections. Police have been studying the matter closely because officers must stand guard at each intersection whenever the assigned crossing guard does not show up. On some snowy days, police say a third of the 30 guards call in, forcing the city to put much of its patrol force on crossing-guard duty for two hours. ..............>>>>..............>>>>..............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01402&AppName=1
SCHENECTADY City crossing guards get their raise BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
After one final glitch, the crossing guards got their raise. It’s been a long road to this point — the guards have been paid just above minimum wage for decades. With that wage has come a series of changes: the loss of health insurance benefits, then the threat of termination when some guards routinely called in sick on snowy or rainy days, and finally the reduction of hours at some posts that left several guards at half-pay. Then, last week, they got the good news that their raises had been approved. Except they hadn’t. The council approved a raise to $10 an hour in committee last week, but did not formally vote until Monday. Making matters more confusing, last week’s letter from the city told crossing guards that they could earn an incentive bonus every quarter if they missed no more than two half-days or one full day. The trouble was, the council wanted guards to be able to call in for two full days without risking their bonus. “It just adds confusion to the whole thing,” Councilman Gary McCarthy said. “I don’t know why that letter was sent out.” On Monday, the council voted as they had planned last week: $10 raises and bonuses each quarter for those who missed no more than four half-days or two full days. The council hopes that the bonus will get most guards to show up even in bad weather, and will revisit the issue next year to determine whether attendance has improved. In that vein, they added a controversial requirement: when picking up their checks, guards must now sign an affidavit listing the number of hours they worked. City workers sign their time sheets but do not sign an affidavit, and Councilwoman Barbara Blanchard questioned the practice. “That seems demeaning to me,” she said. But McCarthy called it “a common-sense way of doing business” and the rest of the council did not object. The entire package passed unanimously. ...............>>>>...............>>>>...................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....1&Continuation=1
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