Triopia School District has settled a lawsuit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over potential ageism in its contract language.
The Journal Courier reports that the district was one of several across the state named in the suit that claimed that wording in their contracts may have led the districts to participate in ageism. The district isn’t being penalized but was included in the suit because of a clause in its union contracts that limits the percentage of pay increases for employees in their last four years of employment, according to Triopia Superintendent Adam Dean speaking to the Journal Courier.
The district was notified that it was included in the lawsuit at the beginning of the year. A similar lawsuit was settled against Urbana School District 116 in April, in which they paid out a summary judgment of over $200,000.
Dean says that school districts are penalized when their employees receive more than a 6% pay increase in the final years of employment before they retire because it’s meant to cap inflation into retirement funds.
To prevent the inflation and resulting fines, many districts added employment contract clauses preventing large pay increases during the last four years of employment.
The clause was added to the contract written in 2013.
But, according to the suit, limiting someone’s pay increase based on the number of years they have left before retirement constitutes ageism, because it prevents older individuals from receiving substantial increases.
Dean says that no one in Triopia ever received a 6% pay increase in their final 4 years since the 2013 contract, and the district has never limited stipends.
To resolve the lawsuit, the district had to provide a list of all employees who left the district after the clause was added to the contract, along with their salaries and all former bargaining contracts. The district removed the clause in its most current contract.