The St. Helena Unified School District has finally reached an agreement with the union that represents its classified employees, but it appears it won’t be long before they’re back at the bargaining table.

The St. Helena School Board voted this month to ratify a new three-year contract with the California School Employees Association, which represents about 80 district support staffers, including secretaries, bus drivers, and food service and maintenance workers.

The last contract expired in June 2007. The new one is retroactive to July 1, 2007, but one of its key components — a 3 percent raise for district employees — is only retroactive to Jan. 1, 2008.

The district will pay employees a total of about $100,000 a year more as a result of the new contract.

CSEA Field Director Keith Pace said the union wasn’t able to convince the district to give employees additional raises based on local property tax revenues — a deal similar to that given to the separate union representing the district’s teachers.

The district agreed to increase benefits to cover rising health care costs. But Pace said that concession came at a price: the approved raises will be retroactive only back to Jan. 1, not back to last July when the old contract expired.

Pace said both parties were eager to reach an agreement because negotiations had dragged on since September.

Like the one the teachers signed, the CSEA contract lasts three years. But unlike the teachers’ agreement, it includes “re-openers” for salaries and benefits each year.

That means it’s back to the bargaining table when the first year of the contract expires June 30. Pace said the union will keep fighting for concessions similar to those given the teachers.

The disclosure of the agreement caused some concern because a section listing impacts of the deal on instructional and support programs said the district would be laying off a six-hour P.E. aide and an eight-hour custodian.

Catrina Howatt, the school district’s chief business official, told the school board those layoffs are not a foregone conclusion. Any potential layoffs will be discussed as the school board plans its budget for the next fiscal year, she said.

Listing the two layoffs in the collective bargaining agreement is necessary to show that “we recognize that if income doesn’t increase based on other components of the budget, based on what we don’t know, that we will be making expenditure reductions,” said Howatt. “They may not be the ones identified in this list.”