JAY — Jay and Regional School Unit 36 contracts for employees are quite close in comparison, according to a panel studying the issue.

In fact, they found that they were closer than most thought, RSU 36 Superintendent Sue Pratt said Tuesday.

“There really isn’t a lot of difference in contracts,” Pratt said as she gave an overview of the Personnel and Salary Subcommittee’s findings to the Regional Planning Committee working on a plan to combine school systems in Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls.

The subcommittee analyzed the differences between the districts for many groups of employees during the summer.

They ran different level scenarios on the contracts and found that “the two systems have different yet fairly similar employee benefits and salaries all and all,” Pratt said. “Within each group, it showed that at some levels of experience one group might be slightly higher paid than the other and then this changes from one level of the pay scale to another. The group concluded that the contracts were quite close, and in fact closer than most thought they would be.”

One system might have a higher pay scale but less benefits, or one might have more vacation days than the other, but with all aspects figured in they were fairly close in total salary and benefits, she said.

According to the subcommittee’s minutes on a comparison on teachers’ contracts, “generally what was found is at the beginning step, a teacher package is better in RSU 36 and as the years go up, there are some differences but the differences are not as significant at most levels as previously thought.”

“The biggest difference is at year 20 with a difference of $7,396, including the difference in dental and life insurance that exist in Jay but not in RSU 36. The costs for various steps varied from RSU 36 providing an increase cost of $2,587 at step zero on the masters scale to Jay providing an increased cost of $7,396 at step 20 on the bachelor’s scale,” the minutes state.

It is estimated that the difference between the two might cost about $78,000, it states.

Those studying the educational technicians’ and secretaries’ contracts found “the difference varied from $677 to $1,788 depending on the ed tech classification, the years of employment, and the insurance benefit taken,” the minutes state.

The secretary group varied more with RSU 36 being higher for an employee with three years of service and a full family plan by $2,635 to Jay being higher for an employee of nine years and taking a single insurance plan by $5,824.

In food service, the minutes state that those studying the issue looked at a comparison for 16 years of service and found that the difference is $19,500 versus Jay $20,700.

Work hours accounted for a part of this difference.

A lot of the difference is in the work time, according to minutes.

Jay does its own program and RSU 36 uses a contracted service for part of the program, those charged with food service comparison stated.

In a comparison that was done between the two systems for bus drivers and comparison, it showed some differences in areas such as hourly rates, dental insurance cost for Jay being paid at $375 per year and health insurance costs being paid more by RSU 36 by a few percents but Jay having more sick time allotted and one more holiday, minutes stated.

One issue that came out was RSU 36 did not have uniforms as Jay did with some reimbursement being paid by Jay each year, the report states.

The group found that the hourly wage difference varies $3.85 to $2.82 per hour between the two classifications of either custodian or bus driver.

The subcommittee plans to run more comparisons on contracts including administration.

All but four contracts expire on June 30, 2011. Jay teachers’ and education technicians’ contracts expire on Aug. 31, 2012, and June 30, 2012, respectively.

And RSU 36’s high school and middle school principals contracts each expire on June 30, 2012.

dperry@sunjournal.com