The Pleasant Valley School Board approved a plan to permit temporary furloughs in an 8-1 vote Thursday night.

Desiree Murray, a paraprofessional at Pleasant Valley Elementary School, addressed the board about the agenda item and asked how the furloughs would be handled and if it would affect their health care benefits. She said the elementary school is doing a wonderful job and the hybrid model is going well, but this agenda item “has us a little on the edge.”

Murray said they are concerned about sudden furloughs.

“We would love to have a dialogue,” she said.

According to the motion for the plan, it authorizes “the school administration to take any and all necessary steps to furlough support staff employees due to a lack of work as the result of the pandemic of 2020 and the resulting modifications to the delivery of education. In the event employees are furloughed as a result of this motion, the administration shall bring back the names of the impacted individuals for ratification by the Board of Education. This motion further authorizes the administration to recall employees once work becomes available.”

School board Director Susan Kresge voted no on the motion.

“I didn’t know anything about this until we got our agenda. I can’t vote on it yet,” she said. “I wanted more time to think about it.”

School board Director Dan Wunder said he would vote yes for it, but only because the school district’s solicitor Mark Fitzgerald advised the board to vote in favor of it.

“There should have been discussion,” he said.

Fitzgerald said he wanted to answer Murray’s questions, and said even with the plan in place, it does not result in immediate furloughs.

With cases of COVID-19 increasing nationwide, the school district felt it needed to put in place a plan for furloughs if a school or schools have to close due to the virus for a week or more, and furlough some employees due to a lack of work, he said. Once the school reopens, those employees would be reinstated.

School board Director Laura Jecker asked him to clarify if this had been discussed with the teachers’ union. Fitzgerald said that it was his understanding that they had been spoken to. He said they agree that having this plan in place is beneficial to furloughed employees, because it provides them with official documentation for the state when applying for unemployment benefits.

“It’s always important that they can point to official action of their employer,” Fitzgerald said.

Human Resources Director Jessica Tomon confirmed that the school district has been in talks with the union.

School board Director Todd Kresge asked what would happen to the employees’ insurance benefits.

“The specific terms of what that would look like would need further discussion,” Tomon said.

It is an item that still needs to be discussed, but the union will be a part of that discussion with the school board, she said.

“Generally, if there (are) types of unpay, the board would have to do more of an agreement, so to speak, if benefits would continue,” Tomon said.