The Berkeley Unified School District approved a three-year contract agreement with the Berkeley Council of Classified Employees after nearly 10 months of negotiations over benefits and wage increases for non-credentialed district staff, or classified employees.<\/p>\n
BUSD approved the contract at a school board meeting April 8. It will run from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2028, and covers wage increases, expanded health care benefits and updated contract language for classified staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of relief there,\u201d said Frank Hernandez, president of the BCCE on reaching a contract agreement. \u201cYou never get everything you want. But I think most people on the negotiating team fought really hard for their members, and it shows.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contract negotiations began in June 2025 after the previous contract expired, leaving BCCE members working under the expired agreement while negotiations stretched over the following months. The tentative agreement was reached March 6 and was ratified by union members March 23, before being approved by BUSD in early April.<\/p>\n
In a statement, BUSD Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel described the agreement as the result of a \u201cthoughtful and collaborative process\u201d shaped by financial constraints.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe final agreement reflects that balance \u2014 honoring the essential contributions of our classified staff while also aligning with the district\u2019s fiscal realities,\u201d Ford Morthel said in the statement.<\/p>\n
According to the meeting agenda, the agreement will increase district budget costs by approximately $604,225 in 2025-26 and $1.17 million in 2026-27.<\/p>\n
The updated contract followed pink slip season in early March, where more than 350 district employees received potential layoff or reassignment notices. The majority of these employees are represented by the BCCE.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, BUSD is hitting some hard times,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cBut \u2026 you\u2019re going to see that they\u2019re going to work through a lot of these layoffs. A lot of them are going to get rescinded. How many? I don\u2019t think anybody really knows.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the new contract, classified employees will receive a 3% salary increase for the 2025-26 school year and a 4% increase for 2026-27. Salary adjustments for the final year of the contract will be negotiated through a \u201creopener\u201d in 2027, according to Hernandez.<\/p>\n
The agreement also includes improved healthcare benefits for union members. Starting Jan. 1, 2027, the district will cover 100% of health insurance premiums at the Kaiser rate for employees and their dependents, eliminating out-of-pocket costs for single, plus-one and family plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, that was the highlight,\u201d Hernandez said.<\/p>\n
The new contracts also include one-time bonuses based on full-time equivalency for employees of about $1,000, as well as updated contracting language.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a big relief getting through the contract negotiations,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cUnfortunately, we go on to the next battle. So the work is never done. And that goes for all of our members too. We constantly, as unions, have to push for what we believe is right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Berkeley Unified School District approved a three-year contract agreement with the Berkeley Council of Classified Employees after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[87682,6765,9313,96486,143,145,144],"class_list":{"0":"post-270690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-berkeley-council-of-classified-employees","9":"tag-berkeley-unified-school-district","10":"tag-enikia-ford-morthel","11":"tag-frank-hernandez","12":"tag-oakland","13":"tag-oakland-headlines","14":"tag-oakland-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}