Here is the CATV 6 video of the Salisbury Board Of Education meeting this month. Mike Flint, and Patricia Chamberlain talk about a vendetta, and then the superintendent talks about how opponents asked to strip the third year of the new contract….WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. It has always, for the past two years, been about the administration HONORING their THREE YEAR CONTRACT, and not negotiating a new three-year contract every year. Times are tough, it’s no time for administrators to get additional benefits with NEW contracts that are called extensions. It’s not about money, it’s about the administration doing the honorable and right thing…live with your current three-year contract, and don’t ditch it for a new contract with more annuities, more vacation days, more sick days. HONOR YOUR CURRENT CONTRACT. And also in this video, the Salisbury Board complains that the on-air conversation is on-sided…who’s fault is that? WHDD has offered the Region One Board Chair Phil Hart equal time to come on-air, it offered thru the Region One Board Chair Phil Hart and invitation for the All Boards Committee to come on air…both offers were not accepted.
Watch this video for at least the first 11-15 minutes…they just don’t get it.
In response to the Salisbury board of ed member who asked why people are still opposed to Region 1’s proposed spending plan, and the superintendent’s reply that she doesn’t know why but thinks it’s a “personal vendetta” , I’d like to provide (again) the following statement I read into the record at the Region1 board meeting on March 28, 2012, explaining why I would vote against the administrators’ pay raises:
On Pay Raises and Contract Extensions:
I will vote again, as I did last year, against pay increases, more days off, and contract extensions for the administrative staff because to vote for these increases, in my opinion and according to my conscience, would express a lack of consideration for the taxpayers of Region 1. The recession has not gone away. We are still living in a time of economic and political peril. There is instability, uncertainty and saber-rattling in the worldm making it impossible to know what the next few years will bring even in terms of the cost of fuel. We know there are some very wealthy taxpayers in Region 1. We also know the majority of people are not among them. The majority of people are hardworking employees, some of whom have lost their jobs, some of whom have lost or may lose their homes, many of whom make well below the middle class median household income of around $50,000 for a family of four, and most of whom have not had raises for the past few years, or whose raises have not even met the almost 3 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index. By contrast, there’s no hardship in the administrators’ present compensation packages which range from over $100,000 to more than $160,000 [actually, around $180,000 for the superintendent]. Region 1 taxpayers will be asked to bear an additional tax burden for
necessary and mandated repairs to the high school building. To ask them to pay for raises for people who already earn so much money is, to me, unthinkable. Any budget increases at this
point should be directed toward improving student learning.
Sorry, I forgot to sign the above posting.
~~ Gale Courey Toensing