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WCCC OKs staff compensation package

A series of compensation packages for staff were approved Thursday night by the Washington County Career Center board.

The approval gives across-the-board increases of 3.5 percent for the coming year, 3 percent for the following year and 2.5 percent for the year after that for teaching staff, classified staff and administrators. The agreement with the teachers’ association was reached May 9 and ratified Thursday night unanimously.

“The negotiations went very well, and this will allow the career center to grow and prosper,” superintendent Dennis Blatt said. “I saw the professionalism of the teachers’ association, and it confirms my belief that this is a great place to be because of the people.”

In addition, all personnel were given bonuses of $500, intended to assist them as the terms of the new health benefits package come into effect, which Blatt said include higher deductibles and out-of-pocket costs to employees.

Treasurer Joe Crone said the center has 58 full-time staff.

The career center this year had a senior class of 213. Blatt said he recalled eight years ago that the annual awards ceremony for seniors was held in a tent on the grounds; this year, it was held in the Marietta College Dyson Baudo Recreation Center, and the crowd nearly filled the large hall. The center has more than 300 juniors enrolled so far in the fall.

The board approved hiring of three new teachers: English instructor Chelsea Warren, intervention specialist Melissa Morri, and cosmetology instructor Phyllis Boyd to replace Tara Yates, who has resigned to take another position.

Victoria Mattson, a regional partnership specialist with the Census Bureau, offered a presentation on the 2020 census and urged the board to help form a Complete Count Committee for Washington County. She emphasized the importance to the county and all its institutions, including schools, to get counted as accurately as possible. The count determines in part the allocation of federal funding to state and local governments and programs, she said.

“Head Start, Meals om Wheels, school lunch funding, Medicaid … all those and more,” she said.

The 2010 Census, she said, is now thought to have undercounted children five years of age and under by 1 million, which meant the places where those children resided did not received the benefits they were entitled to.

Washington County, she said, is in danger of being undercounted by as much as 10 percent, she said.

“Our data suggest that 8,500 people might be missed, and that’s over $2,000 per person that the county could miss out on,” she said, noting on a map a big crescent east of I-77 from the bridge to the Noble County border.

“That’s a low response area,” she said.

Although every household is required by law to respond to the census, determining where people are during the census is a major undertaking, and people who are homeless, transient or just move frequently can be missed.

The census, she said, is also used to determine electoral boundaries for offices ranging from school boards to congressional representatives.

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