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NEVER SAY NEVER!!!!! Reply

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We know how tough it is to vote down a Region One Budget. And we know there are some that will say we are against education. Well that is poppycock.

Spend the money on programs, and teachers and support staff. The administration in Region One is adequately paid, and its good money, no, make that great money as well.

Let them get new contracts as they should, when their current contract expires!

GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!!!!!! As we write this there are under four hours to go in the referendum. EVERY VOTE COUNTS! Please make yours count today.

And thanks for the great response…remember, this is not a path that is quickly traveled.  So far we have a toe-hold, we are now  looking for a foot-hold, but, we have made great progress this year. It will be a long process to get our Board Of  Education and Administration to let us be the full partners we should be. We have only just begun.

From The Republican-American…Our administrative salary structure is MORE than adequate..VOTE NO! Reply

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THOMASTON — The Board of Education at a special meet­ing Tuesday hired a new busi­ness manager.

Superintendent Lynda J. Mitchell said the board chose to hire Nancy O’Dea-Wyrick because of her broad experi­ence in both municipal govern­ment and managing school dis­trictsfinances. She will fill the position vacated by outgoing business manager Sue Laone, who is leaving to run the business office for Region 10 schools in Burlington.

O’Dea-Wyrick of Kent is a member of the Board of Finance there and has been business manager of school dis­tricts in Monore and Derby. She was most recently an interim business manager in a North Haven school district.

“She will be a great replace­ment for Sue,” Mitchell said. “She has an interesting balance between the whole community piece, leadership piece and edu­cation leadership piece.”

O’Dea-Wyrick, one of six can­didates who was seeking the job, will be paid an $80,000 annual salary and will oversee the school’s $14 million budget. Laone, who was business man­ager for seven years was paid a little more than $90,000 last year.

O’Dea-Wyrick, who also served two terms on the Kent Board of Selectmen and Board of Education, said that experi­ence will help her with her new job.

“I have got three perspec­tives beside the central office perspective,” she said. “I look forward to getting to know the people in the community and working with them.”

Region One activates ALL CALL again on budget vote tonight!!!!! 1

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Seems strange to us that the Region One Administration only uses the “ALL CALL” system when it appears the budget vote is in doubt.  We have been informed by people tonight that the “ALL CALL” system is in use again tonight to get out the vote. Now, this would not be a bad idea, but why is it ONLY used by the administration when there appears to be a budget vote in doubt. Why not use it to get people out at the Board Of Education meetings?  Why not use it to get people out to budget hearings? Why? A simple answer…..when the administration contracts are in doubt, that is the time they use it.

There has been NO compromise by the administration, make your own “ALL CALL”  and “ALL EMAIL” and get your friends and neighbors to vote NO May 31. Lets bring the administration and the board back to the negotiating table!

Letter ToThe Editor Reply

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New budget proposal includes administrators’ raises, benefits

Voters will go to the polls again on May 31 for a second vote on Region 1’s proposed budget for 2012-2013, having soundly rejected the first one by 570-472 in early May. At that same referendum voters overwhelmingly approved two high school building projects totaling $3.6 million by votes of 789-254 and 793-251, indicating that the reason for the rejected budget had nothing to do with money. On the contrary, the main objections the board heard about the proposed budget concerned “central office” administrators’ raises, contract extensions, extra days off, an annuity and other benefits.

Board Chairman Phil Hart and Superintendent Patricia Chamberlain claim that since the majority of the board voted to approve the contract changes prior to the first referendum that they are “legal contracts” that must be “honored.”  The attorney for three of the Region 1 towns – Falls Village, Sharon and North Canaan, says the contract changes are not legal until taxpayers pass a budget. Commonsense asks: How could raises and other financial benefits included in a proposed budget be legal when taxpayers haven’t voted to approve the budget and appropriate the funds to pay for the raises and other benefits?

In addition to insisting that a board majority approval – not voter approval — is all that’s needed to make the contracts legal, Mr. Hart, apparently speaking on behalf of the administrators, suggested in an open meeting of the board on May 17 that the administrators might sue the Region 1 board – meaning, the taxpayers of the region — if they don’t get their raises and other benefits. He encouraged the board to ask the administrators for an alleged “concession” — to give up the one-year contract extension that the board majority had approved.  The administrators agreed to give up the extension, but in the new proposed budget they still get to keep their raises, extra vacation days, an annuity and other expensive benefits that do nothing whatsoever to improve student learning or ease the financial burden on Region  1 taxpayers.  Furthermore, if the new proposed budget is approved, those raises and extra benefits will be the starting point for the administrators’ contract negotiations next year.

To sweeten the deal or perhaps distract attention from the fact that the board majority is again fattening the administrators’ contracts with pay packets that range from over $100,000 to around $180,000, taxpayers are being offered around $278,000 in high school budget cuts that no one asked for and which could adversely affect student programs and building improvements. Common sense asks: How are these cuts possible now when we were told they were so necessary just a little while ago when the budget proposal was presented?

Our democracy provides the right for voters to make choices. This is an appeal to all Region 1 voters to vote in the proposed budget referendum on May 31 and let your choices be heard.

Gale Courey Toensing

The following opinion is that of Marshall Miles, individual, resident of Salisbury Connecticut, and Region One Taxpayer. The opinion in no way reflects the views of Tri-State Public Communications, It’s Board of Directors, or any of the staff, volunteers, or underwriters of WHDD or CATV 6 or Tri-State Public Communications Inc. 3

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Marshall Miles editorial on Region One Budget Referendum May 31
The following opinion is that of Marshall Miles, individual, resident of Salisbury Connecticut, and Region One Taxpayer. The opinion in no way reflects the views of Tri-State Public Communications, It’s Board of Directors, or any of the staff, volunteers, or underwriters of WHDD or CATV 6 or Tri-State Public Communications Inc.
We here in the northwest corner of Connecticut and The Region One School District in particular, find ourselves at a precipice.  We can either continue with  the same old same old from the Region One Administration and Region One Board, or have the Region One Board and Administration take on a partner in evolving, and creating  budgets for the region by actually listening and responding to the concerns of taxpayers.
For way too long taxpayers have let budgets come and go, let contracts come and go, without becoming involved.   In my view, this lack of oversight has contributed to a feeling of entitlement by both the board and the administration to exclude the public from the budget process. Yes, there are budget hearings, but those hearings are little more than the board reading off the budget line by line, the budget process already apparently finished.
And these budgets have passed.   Until the last time.  Why?
Well, we as taxpayers are no longer willing to accept that. We as taxpayers want a true VOICE in the budget, a true VOICE in financing decisions concerning contracts; we want the board and the administration not only to just listen, but when prompted by the taxpayers, TO ACT.
After the last referendum, the message was loud and clear: reduce the budget, and no extensions of the administrator’s contracts. What was the board and the administration’s response? To cut programs and services, to anticipate more revenue, and to leave the new annuities, new vacation days, new sick days, and additional pay raises intact for the administrators.  The purported concession?  To cut off the final year of the NEW administrative contracts.  The contracts that were not approved by the taxpayers.  All of this while still currently in year one of a new three-year contract negotiated last year. The board and the administration called it a concession, I call it a horrible joke, or worse, a total lack of respect for the over 500 voters who defeated the last budget proposal on May 17.
 Exactly how hard would it be for the administration to just simply HONOR the three-year contract they were given just last year? Exactly how hard is it for the Region One Board to understand not to offer three-year contracts every year?  Apparently it’s very hard as they refuse to take this request seriously.
Well now is the time, and this budget vote is the place. This is a chance for the public to reinforce to the board and the administration that enough is enough! Honor three-year contracts, listen to the public, and don’t turn your back on the taxpayers, the students, and the future success of Region One. A NO VOTE on this budget proposal will do just that.
For way to long the public has let the board and administration have free reign on the financial side of our educational system. Well, that has changed. We are now involved, we have ideas and proposals, and we not only want input, we want action on what we propose and then vote on. When we say NO, we mean NO. When a budget is defeated for two VERY important issues, we want BOTH those issues dealt with, not a hybrid budget that barely deals with one issue.
With this second budget proposal, the board and administration have ignored the message of the first referendum.
It’s time to let the board and administration of Region One know in no uncertain terms:
1)    Get spending under control
2)    Have the administrators honor their three-year contracts
3)    Change the way you negotiate the administrative contracts so that a three-year contract is just that, a three-year contract
4)    Listen to the input from taxpayers on the budget process,  and most importantly, welcome the taxpayers of the region with open arms, not with hostility and doubt.
On May 31 VOTE NO on the Region One Budget, let the Region One Board and administration know we want to be full partners in the education of Region One students. Not silent partners.
The preceding opinion was that of Marshall Miles, individual, resident of Salisbury Connecticut, and Region One Taxpayer. The opinion in no way reflects the views of Tri-State Public Communications, It’s Board of Directors, or any of the staff, volunteers, or underwriters of WHDD or CATV 6 or Tri-State Public Communications Inc.

Patricia Chamberlain Superintendent at Regional School District on video March 28…Quote ” it’s not existed in that contract before”. Hmmm, must be a NEW contract, not an extension 1

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Please watch in this video below, Patricia Chamberlain Superintendent at Regional School  District at the march 28 Board Meeting admit that the contracts are NOT extensions, (it’s not existed in the current contract). If it has not existed in the current contract, how can you call it an extension..you CAN’T! IT’S WHAT WE HAVE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG. It is a NEW contract, not an extension. No new contracts one year into a three-year contract. This is a NEW contract. Defeat it again.

Patricia Cham­berlain, Mike Flint…IT’S NOT ABOUT VENDETTA’S..AND IT’S NOT ABOUT THE THIRD YEAR…IT’S ABOUT HONORING YOUR THREE YEAR CONTRACT AND NOT RENEGOTIATING AFTER ONE YEAR, ESPECIALLY DURING TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES 2

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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.

With many fires burning around her, our Superintendent has another one flare up…and the Region needs yet ANOTHER lawyer… 2

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If it’s one thing for sure, or Superintendent loves lawyers, so much so, we now have two working on one case. The case where Region One is denying tenure to Guidance Councilor Steve Hurley. The first meeting was held last week. I have attached a video to this post. Just so you know how well-respected Mr. Hurley is a Facebook page was started in support of him..over 355 people , teachers, students, parents, and more have signed on in support. Come on folks, get involved in your school district. Find out what is going on, GET INVOLVED.

Here is the link to the Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/groups/355621004498226/members/