Hmmm. When was the Joint Steering/Discussion/Leadership meeting? February 28? We have now gone from Dave Brumfield's idea of turfing and lighting a middle school's field to Josephine Posti's last item, "Field Use" on the March 12 school board meeting agenda, as a proposal from the Commission. How did that happen?
I went back to read the 2012 Manager's Recommended Budget. There are 299 service level rankings. Each "decision package" is listed in order of importance to municipal operations. Steve Feller provides an excellent explanation to his zero base budgeting. I do not see anything listed for improving District fields. What is interesting to see is what a million plus dollars (cost of lighting and turfing a District field) buys in the municipal budget. The Commission determines the level of service. If a service level is listed as a "1" on the service level rankings, as I understand it, it is considered to be basic service. If a decision package is listed as a S/L 3, then it includes Levels 1, 2, and 3.
On pages 14-19 of the 2012 Manager's Recommended Budget, list the 299 service level rankings. There is a line under number 166, Forestry. Anything above the line is funded. Anything below the line is not. I believe that means that 133 items did not make the suggested budget. To put it simply, those items were sacrificed and yet the "Commission" is proposing that they turf and light Mellon or Jefferson field.
Sooo, how is turfing and lighting a District field benefitting the community, Josephine and Dave? Ding, ding, ding. That round went to the District.
Today, if Dorothy were to encounter Men with no brains, no hearts, and no courage -
ReplyDeleteShe wouldn't be in Oz -
She'd be on the school board or the commission.
John
Aha....this is where one needs to understand a little government accounting and budgeting. The $ will not be coming from the Managers recommended budget or even that authorized by the Commission-approved 2012 budget on 12/20/2011.
ReplyDeleteIt would come from the subsequent, now essentially completed, audit-determined and confirmed year-end 2011 general fund balance undesignated surplus that the Commission can appropriate in a to-be-amended 2012 budget in say May. And it would need only 3 votes, not like 4 required for a bond issue.
It'll be in public, in the open and not a shell game. Stay tuned.
Bill Lewis
So the Commission is saying they have money for Chip's School District field but they are still $1,000,000 behind on the Pension Contributions Compromise.
ReplyDeleteSome Commissioners are not taking good care of the municipal employees!
John
I am happy to see that at a minimum, though Mr. Ewing continues to level personal insults at the male members of the commission and school board, he seems to believe that our female members are people of wisdom, compassion and courage. That leads me to say something I hadn't thought I would, "John, I agree. All of the women on our two boards are selfless public servants trying to positively affect our community. And I say to them, Thank you. Now, if only us dumb guys could catch up.
ReplyDeleteDave Brumfield
Setting a good example would be good, Mr. Dumbfield!
ReplyDeleteMy comments have nothing to do with gender.
John
Though it appears I have left your blog Elaine, i am still quietly reading it & trying to keep my blood pressure down.
ReplyDeleteI do not support Mr. Brumfeld's opinion in regards to the female members of the commission & school board. All but one are bullies & are effectively bullying the male members of the commission & school board. Sarah Morris
Why waste your time Dave. Only the flying monkeys follow the Wicked Witch and her blog.
ReplyDeleteJay Neff
Mr. Brumfield, since you are obviously following this blog, here's a request. If you have money in the municipal budget to pay for turf and lights on a ball field, don't raise my taxes or borrow any money.
ReplyDeleteI don't want bonds floated for street paving or what ever else needs fixing in the community.
You have $1 million floating around somewhere, use it for the things you are obligated to do. Say fixing rain sewers.
Then start saving up for artificial turf or some other luxury your pals think they need.
Oh, by the way Dave, you know who welcomed
Dorothy - The Lollipop Kids and then who told Dorothy where to go... Munchkins!
You may want to pay particularly close attention to the one character that followed Dorothy everywhere... Toto.
Just FYI, Dave. ;-)
Giffen Good
The District is considering a HS fund raising for $30,000,000 to offset a HS bond issue.
ReplyDeleteWhy are Commissioners Brumfield & Co. offering to turf and light a middle school field instead of co-operating with the HS fund raising?
Do we now have P/K asking for $1,000,000 for turfing middle school fields when they are trying to raise money for the HS. This will make the fund raising more complicated for the Directors and will likely confuse Leadership Donors who learn of this. It may even result in a Red Light for the fund raising campaign as the Leadership Donors make decisions about the HS project.
Do we really need to spend $1,000,000 to confuse our Leadership Donors?
John
MT LEBANON TEACHERS CONTRACT
ReplyDelete2014-2015 Salary Scale Percentage
Step MA/MS Increase
1 $52,000
2 $53,000 1.92%
3 $54,000 1.89%
4 $55,000 1.85%
5 $56,000 1.82%
6 $57,000 1.79%
7 $58,500 2.63%
8 $60,500 3.42%
9 $62,500 3.31%
10 $64,900 3.84%
11 $66,100 1.85%
12 $67,500 2.12%
13 $69,400 2.81%
14 $71,000 2.31%
15 $80,500 13.38%
16A $86,500 7.45%
16B $103,600 19.77%
Teachers get a 37% salary increase in the first 14 steps.
then get a 46% salary increase in the last three steps.
Teachers get a $19,000 increase in 14 steps
Teachers get a $32,600 increase in 3 steps
Mr.Cotten,
ReplyDeleteAs I understand the process the union negotiating committee is given a lump of money to distribute each year and the negotiating committee determines where to put the salary increases in the steps of the contract.
If these numbers are correct it appears that the "Babies" on the steps are being told they can provide the money to pay for the HS while the older teachers spiked their pensions with a higher salary.
The union receives dues payments to represent all teachers but only represented the older teachers. Isn't the negotiating committee made up of older teachers? Look at the signatures in the teachers' contract to see who made this mess for younger teachers.
MIT has two professors who are tracking worldwide inflation by checking the prices of goods sold in 70 countries. They do this by checking advertised prices on worldwide websites of major retailers. The last I looked inflation worldwide was running about 4% and that impacts the prices you will pay for imported goods and services, but the biggest increase in the salary figures in the first 14 steps is 3.84% on step 10. That is hardly enough to pay $64.00 to put 16 gallons of gas in your car.
Ron Hoffman told me in 2004 that there were enough younger teachers to out vote the older teachers in the union negotiated contract. Since then at least 75 older teachers have been replaced by younger teachers making a 150 vote swing in favor of the younger teachers.
The Act 1 millage limit won't allow the last year of the contract to be paid anyway as I have explained in previous posts. Also the School Employees Pension Plan is so underfunded that the younger teachers are not likely to get pensions like the older teachers because of the low funding of the Pension Plan.
If i were the younger teachers, I would petition the school board to reopen negotiations on the contract, replace the negotiating committee with younger teachers, and redistribute the moneys in favor of the younger teachers.
If you do this, don't be afraid to leave some of the money from the older teachers on the table to help close the spending gap in the District Budget - the older teachers need to contribute too. You can get it back in a future contract.
Good luck to the younger teachers in replacing the older teachers who left you behind,
John
Looking at the steps closely and considering the matter of tenure, it seems the only the analysis or evaluation of a teacher's ability to teach well... Is basically longevity.
ReplyDeleteGiffen Good
Mr. Good,
ReplyDeleteLength of service has no correlation with being a good teacher. All tenure does is preserve the jobs of bad teachers. Merit pay in education should mean you are allowed to keep your job and not be bumped out of it by a longer-serving bad teacher.
John