It hasn’t been long enough for the ink to dry on the paperwork declaring Hamburg School District in a fiscal meltdown that their residents are going to have to bail them out of and then the School District gives its teachers a hell of a raise. When does the pocket picking stop for the residents and their wallets? Mismanagement always leads to higher tax increases and this is just another example of a district appeasing a union to prevent further hostility within the Hamburg School District.
Not only are the teachers getting a pretty penny in raises they are getting some extra dough just to get certifications needed to do the jobs they get paid to do to begin with. UNBELIEVABLE!!!
So the district is well into the red, they continue to spend recklessly and the only real way out of this mess will be with your school taxes to increase. Wake up Hamburg, replace the School Board members with residents who are not politically motivated and have a brain!
OH, and by the way just so you are all aware. The elected School Board are there to be the residents PROTECTION against unfair school policies and practices, including fair negotiating of all contracts. Do you think it’s fair that your district is way in the red and your teachers are getting a raise that you will have to pay for? WAKE UP! GET RID OF THESE PEOPLE WHO FORGOT THEY WORK FOR YOU AND NOT THE UNIONS!
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/southernsuburbs/story/247340.html
Teachers to receive 7.8 percent raise over two years
By Eileen Werbitsky SOUTHTOWNS CORRESPONDENT
Updated: 01/09/08 7:05 AM
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The Hamburg Teachers Association has a new two-year contract with the district retroactive to July 1.
The agreement, approved during a meeting of the School Board on Tuesday, calls for a 3.7 percent salary increase for the 2007-08 school year and a 4.1 percent increase for the following year.
Assistant Superintendent Gordon Kerr, who represented the district in the negotiations, said that beyond the wage increase, the union’s agreement last month to embrace a single health insurance carrier was the most significant element in the contract. The union ratified the agreement about two weeks ago, Kerr said.
In addition, the new contract provides a $750 stipend for any teacher who receives national certification. Kerr said that two of the district’s 375 teachers have earned that distinction, which he said is above and beyond any state requirements.
“This is a new feature of the contract. We want to encourage staff development as we continue to find ways to recognize teachers for their outstanding work,” Kerr said.
In other matters, the board heard an updated deficit projection from Director of Administrative Services Thomas Bagley. He said the budget picture has improved since a shortfall of $1.8 million was first uncovered in October.
With four months of actual expense and revenue numbers completed for the first portion of the school year, Bagley projects the district will be $778,000 in the red by June 30. He said the deficit has been helped by the lack of “emergency” situations thus far this school year and has been assisted by a boost in sales tax revenue, due in part to Canadian spending in Western New York.
Superintendent Mark Crawford said that several new budget components are in place to assist the district during its preparation for 2008-2009. They include monthly financial reports to the School Board and a budget workshop for board members to help increase their understanding of the financial process.
You’re right! Punish the teachers for the Boards mistake. We all know it was the teachers that created this whole mess in the first place. Why, I don’t think I want to send my kids to a school that has such irresponsible teachers.
Hmmm. Didn’t the school unions just agree to help save the school district money by going to one health care provider. Why wouldn’t they see some return for their concessions. The Town just did this last year and they unions got decent raises, but the Town is the real winner as their savings far outweighs the raises given.
So What,
I completely agree with your assesment. The district cut a win-win deal, in which it will see significant savings on health care expenses (which are representing an increasingly large portion of labor costs), while providing their teachers with well deserved raises, and monetary incentives to upgrade their skill sets.
Ford,
Would you prefer that the District play hardball, not settle the contract and continue to pay for inflated health care costs? You are focusing on one portion of an overall agreement that serves the needs of all sides, including the taxpayers. That type of alarmist politics that does not take in the whole picture serves nobody’s well being.
What I’m saying is that the School Board is in place to look out for the tax payers and instead they have become puppets for the unions. A real fiscally conservative School Board would have told the teachers to take a package with a single health provider and pay cuts or suffer layoffs. We don’t have people on our School Boards who have the balls to put teacher jobs over the fire. Remember 1 thing. For every teacher that leaves there are 10 waiting to get hired and I’m willing to bet that a School Board willing to play tuff can break the union and start getting their moneys worth out of their employees.
Good solution. Play hard ball, cut teacher positions and screw the kids.
People move to communities for two things schools and safety. Hamburg has good schools because they have good teachers that are attracted by pay packages. Are they over-paid, no. Just like the unions in the Town they conceded and GAVE UP health care benefits to agree to the pay raise. When this happened in the Town, the Town employees got a very good raise, but the Town is looking at a potential to save at or near $10 million over ten years. I would really be interested to see how much the district benefited by the teachers agreeing to one health provider. I strongly believe they saved a bunch
I respect your opinion but don’t you think that they should have had a single health provider from the beginning? I agree these people are doing a valuable service for our community but in reality they get every break and benefit that is possible. They get just about every federal holiday off, summers off, sick time, vacation time, and just about every other benefit imaginable. Why, because they teach? I think teachers have it way to good for the job they do.
Break the union?? Forget about any type of idealogical beliefs one might hold about organized labor, and lets instead focus on the practicality of your proposal. “Breaking the union” would take years. The New York State United Teachers are not some third rate union. They have well over 500,000 members across New York State, and the resources and strength that come with that type of membership. Point being, I would not expect them to be rolling over to a suburban school board.
Secondly, your idea of basically saying “take our proposal or we’re going to lay you off”, violates the law. It is called bargaining in bad faith when an employer threatens the union like that, and should an employer do that, PERB would sanction them.
Your idea would accomplish a few things, (1) leave an expired contract in place that costs taxpayers ridiculous amounts in health care premiums, (2) destroy the moral of experienced teachers who are an incredibly valuable asset to our children and consequently our community, and significantly increase turnover rates (3) embroil an already troubled district in a fierce labor dispute.
I’d also like to go back to So What’s last post, and point out the contracts that the Town of Hamburg settled last year. Each employee in the Town received three consecutvie four percent raises, which is obviously much more than the school district’s contracts that your bashing. Could you please post a link showing me when you criticized Supervisor Walters for agreeing to larger raises than this school board that you are currently demonizing. If not, I would say that this entire line of criticism is for your own political expediency, and completely hypocritical.
Teachers don’t get vacation time outside of when school is not in session. I really don’t think they get “every break and benefit possible”.
One health care is a new concept as it applies to public sector. Over the years contracts have added on differing plans that at the time were more cost effective but never took the more expensive plans away. It was difficult to get unions to give up the plans that veteran employees had, but they could offer cheaper plans for new hires. The result is that some municipalities had upwards of 35 different health care plans. By getting the unions to agree to one provider, it wiped out all those years of negotiated benefits. This is why the pay raise is more than fair.
I think it’s way past the time to worry about embroiling a union in a nasty contract dispute. The fact of the matter is that if we had board members with any balls we could tie these contacts up in court for dozens of years until the local is broke from legal fees and the taxpayers get a fair deal out of employees they pay for. I know this pisses off the union members but hey, why should John Q. Public care if they are happy? J.Q. Public is the boss here whether or not the teachers like it. So if you and I are the boss then we should be determining the pay scale and not the teachers union! Tell the teachers to take it or leave it. If they leave it then their are dozens of other qualified teachers just waiting to get on the job full time under a contract that benefits the taxpayers more than the union.
Like I had said before. People move to communities for the schools and the safety. You think that breaking the unions at the school and de-valuing the jobs will make you retain and hire qualified teachers? This would have profound effect on the quality of education provided by the district. People would move out of the district to a community that does hire and maintain qualified high level teachers. When people move out and have no incentive to move in the community suffers greatly (see Buffalo). Municipalities need to be able to offer the same when it comes to safety. Public employees are not the enemy here. Hamburg is above the median income for towns in this area and can afford to pay the taxes to provide the proper schools and safety. The problem lies with the extraneous B.S. that the governments have felt they have needed to provide to the public (visitors center, Foits traffic calming and numerous other signature projects.
Bottom line. Hamburg needs more business to offset residential taxes.
Ford,
I’ve given you some time since my last post, and I have yet to see a response to my request. Let me save you the trouble. I’ve searched your archive and cannot find a post in which you criticize supervisor Walters for agreeing to a contract that provides Town employees with higher raises and a longer duration than the Hamburg School Board agreed to for the same concessions!!!
So, did the news articles detailing the Town of Hamburg union contracts escape your attention, or are you simply speaking out of both sides of your mouth??
Please tell me that you are not picking and choosing what governmental policies you will criticize based on which political candidates/parties you have decided to align yourself with. Please tell me you are not filtering your blog posts based on which party will appoint you to advisory boards, therefore boosting your political credentials so you can run for higher political offices.
I should hope not, because if either of the above are the case, I don’t think anyone can categorize you as a governmental watchdog. Instead, you would have to be categorized as the same type of political hack that you love to attack.
I think you’re comparing apples to oranges. Walters had a Democratic controlled board who wouldn’t get tuff on the unions. He did everything he could just to get the single health insurer. The school district has never done a damn thing to consolidate and this is the best chance they have had in a while and they blew it by giving in to the unions. By the way it’s not like the unions are losing anything at all. They still get the same benefits in health care, only the checks are written from one company instead of several. So quit acting like they gave some major concession here.
I figured that you’d pull the “Democratic Board” excuse on this one. Let me point out one fact. In the last round of elections, there was only one Town of Hamburg union to endorse Town Board candidates, and that was the Hamburg Police Benevolent Association. All of the other unions in the Town stayed out of the races.
Drum roll please…. What candidates did they endorse? The same candidates that Supervisor Walters endorsed!!
So my question to you is; if the Democrats were so cozy with the unions, and refused to “get tuff” with them, than why was the only union endorsement in the Town given to the same candidates that Supervisor Walters was endorsing?
The bottom line is that the Town Board simply maintained the right to ratify the contracts. Supervisor Walters was the one who negotiated the agreements that were far more generous than the School District contracts that you are currently criticizing.
So, I guess I will wait for your next excuse for engaging in a hypocritical line of argument. Good luck with your next argument.
I don’t recall ever suing the Town of Hamburg. I did have a lawyer file a notice of intent to sue but then the issue was resolved. Get your facts straight.
Anonymous, If you think it was about the contracts you are wrong.
So What,
That has become increasingly clear. I did however figure that I would give Hamburg First an opportunity to explain his hypocrytical stance. Given that fact that the opportunity was presented, and he cannot provide, at the minimum, a viable argument for his obvious political stance, your point is well taken.
This post was never about the substance of the contracts that he has chosen to chastize, and has always been about his political ambitions.
I guess the upside is that he will never be able to string together a decent argument to defend and/or explain his positions. So, we do not have to fear this hack ever rising above the level of that of a fringe political hack!! Rest easy Hamburg Residents.
I was talking about the endorsement
I think it’s funny that you think I’m the political hack when I’m the one who is open and honest about my opinions and I’m the one person in politics that has a blog putting myself on the line everyday. I don’t expect everyone to agree but who else out their is taking a stand and putting up with your kind of abuse? Like it or not I’m the guy giving you a voice on lots of issues with this site and all you do is criticise me for it. Nice to be anonymous isn’t it?
Ford,
You are fairly predictable. Firstly I figured you would pull the Democratic Board argument with me, and secondly, I figured you would point out that my posts are done anonymously!!
That fact that I choose to post anonymously does not in any way tarnish the arguments that I have presented in all of my previous posts. Also, you have still yet to answer and/or rebut any of those arguments.
Abuse?? I will say that I have absolutely no problem with you putting an argument out on the web, but I do have a problem with you calling it abuse when someone decides that they might offer a different perspective or argument. Seems to me that you get incredibly defensive when someone doesn’t agree with you, and instead of engaging in an intellectual debate about the subject matter of the posts that YOU chose, you make excuses, point out that the post is anonymous, or call the person abusive. Instead of claiming that I am somehow infereior to you because of the way I choose to post, maybe you could stick to the subject matter that you chose and make a coherent point.
So What,
I am well aware that the PBA chose their endorsement because of the way the previous administration/management treated the front line police officers of this community, and politicized the department. I don’t fault them for that in any way. My only point was that if the Dems were somehow cowtowing to all of the other unions in the Town, you would have seen some endorsements for them too.
I think one of the problems with posting anonymous is that several people do it. Give yourself a screen name that identifies yourself even if it’s not your real name. It will prevent you from being confused with others who post on other threads. I get a lot of abuse that does get posted because they’re personal attacks. I delete a dozen BS comments every day. That’s what I meant by my post. If I can’t differentiate between you and someone else then these kinds of mistakes happen.
Anonymous, just wanted to make sure you had the correct info.
I thnk the whole bunch of them should be fired. I can’t believe that this Gordon Kerr guy gets a promotion after being a part of the administration that oversaw this massive deficit. Then he is proud to negotiate a contract that gives raises at a time when no one is getting even COLAs. In the real world, such incompetience isn’t rewarded–excellence is!
You may notice that this same Kerr guy gave himself and all of the administration a 4.1% raise/year… at a time when the district is in the red… Does anybody have any oversight in this district?!?!