ACE News

Hello ACE General Membership

Good news!  We have reached a tentative agreement with the district on several economic items, including a 2.5% COLA. We will be holding a general membership meeting on Tuesday, April 21 from noon – 1 p.m. at the Foothill Campus in room 4604 to discuss the terms of the agreement.   Food will be provided.

Come find out more about the following tentative agreement on:

• Article 8 – Pay & Allowances:  A 2.5% COLA to the ACE classified and classified hourly salary schedules retroactive to July 1, 2014.

• Article 5.2 – Stewards: ACE may have up to six (6) stewards.  A reduction from nine (9).

• Article 5.2.1 –  Release Time for ACE President.  100% paid release time for ACE president. Per the existing contract, the paid release time for the ACE president was ten (10) hours per week. 
  

• Article 7.3 – In-Service Training.  Language change from In-Service training to Professional Development.

• Article 9.2.5 – Accumulated Vacation Leave.   Vacation may now be used in increments of not less than one (1) hour.  Previously you could not be used in less than four (4) hour increments.

• Article 10.13 – Staff Development Leave.  Language change to allow members to apply for SDL during their sixth year, following past practice.

• Article 14.7 – Travel and Conference Funds.  Reduced the annual amount allocated by the district from $50,000 to $40,000 annually.  Increased the amount an employee may receive yearly from $1,000 to $1,500 and maintained all carry-forward.

• If a hiring manager wishes to use a temporary employee without announcing a Working Out of Class opportunity to the ACE membership, the current 90 day limit on use of a temporary employee while recruiting a vacancy still applies.

• If a hiring manager chooses to use announce a Working Out of Class opportunity:
  • If the district hiring manger chooses to hire an ACE member, the Working Out of Class in Article 8.9 of the Agreement applies.
  • If the district hiring manager does NOT choose to hire an ACE member, the hiring manager has up to 150 days to use a temporary employee while recruiting to fill the vacancy.
    • The district has up to 10 months if proceeding with a review of the position (classification review) or department (reorganization) that may result in changes affecting the position.
    • Failure to notify ACE within 75 days of an intent to reclassify or reorganize shall convert the time limit to 165 days from the date of hire of the temporary employee while recruiting to fill the vacancy.

There are still have some outstanding articles to negotiate with the district, including a possible classification study, holiday pay, reorganizations, layoff process and a few others, but we did not want to hold up your COLA while we worked on those.  If the proposed tentative agreement is ratified by our members next week, it will go to the May Board of Trustees meeting and you will see the retroactive and additional pay in our June paycheck.