ADAMS TWP — The Mars School Board, frustrated over a lack of progress in salary and benefits negotiations with its support staff, may turn to the private marketplace.

The board Tuesday decided to advertise for bids for custodial, paraprofessional, cafeteria and secretarial services.

The board voted 7-1, with Steve Boggs dissenting.

Superintendent Wesley Shipley explained after the meeting that negotiations with the district’s 95 support staff have stalled.

The contract expired on June 30, 2015, so the support staff has been working under the old contract for a year.

“We are in the position of failed negotiations, and we felt that as a board, we needed to go out and see what the going rate is for those positions in the business world,” Shipley said.

He said the contractor providing the services hopefully would hire the existing employees.

“The objective is not to send them to the unemployment line; it’s to get them on with the company,” Shipley said.

He said the bids received would give the board an idea of the cost of contracting the support services.

“If we could realize savings, that would be optimal,” Shipley said.

Shipley said the main sticking points in contract negotiations are salary and benefits.

He said other important items are on the table, but they have not even been brought up because the two sides cannot agree on salary and benefits.

When the district announced in June 2012 that bids solicited from support personnel contractors would save the district a considerable amount, a public outcry at several board meetings arose from teachers and parents who supported the workers.

The district and support personnel union came to an agreement and signed a contract for July 1, 2012, to June 30, 2015.

In that contract, starting pay increased from $9.85 per hour to $10, with the highest paid employee making $14 per hour.

All support workers received a 35-cent pay increase in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years.

Teacher Scott McCarthy, who represented the Mars Area Education Association at Tuesday’s meeting, thanked Boggs for his “no” vote.

“This district prides itself on great community,” McCarthy said. “So as people and employees who live and work here, (the support staff) take pride in that.”