Farewell Dark City....
11 years ago
Thursday, August 26, 2010
School fees, vacation daze, Peabody 100k Club and an interesting blog...
Peabody was actually in the Boston Globe's Globe North section for something besides murder, transgender bashing or being the lowest whatever for a change.
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First, the annual listing of salaries must have made its way to the 'slow week' section of the Globe news desk. Peabody: Pay list shows 40 top $100K We are yearly given a listing of the highest paid employees - not surprisingly which are managers, several light plant senior folks, high ranking school officials and police officers who do detail work.
This is usually followed by a litany of average folks being outraged at how much money is paid for so little work being done. This isn't really true, of course - it is just that EVERYONE thinks someone else's job is simple and overpaying.
I am of the opinion that almost everyone on this list is probably deserving of their pay. Where I take exception is to the public safety officers and the use of detail pay. I have discussed this issue MANY TIMES here and on the blogs and this isn't the intent of this post. We can, of course, discuss this in the comments if folks desire.
I was actually a little surprised to see this published in the Globe. It is usually a 'higher intellectual' newspaper and this is more of a Salem News article - as they have never met a government employee worth ANYTHING.
Of course, unlike the Salem News, the Globe goes into some detail giving some reasons for this high pay - most which made sense to me.
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The next article didn't really concern itself with Peabody... which was good considering the focus. Pressure to Pay looked at North Shore communities and the fees to participate on high school sports teams. It seems that while a few decreased fees, a few more increased fees. But Peabody was not one of these. Our sports fee structure stayed the same at $150 per sport with a $300 cap.
The list of communities with fees shows Peabody to be on the lower end of fees charged with only Dracut having lower fees (Gloucester also has a lower starting range, but goes up to $380 per sport.) I am the first to admit that I don't like fees for school activities. But when the schools are in such dire financial straits, I can not see spending precious academic funds on extra-curricular sports or activities. So I was glad to see that while still trying to recoup expenses, Peabody is trying to maintain a minimal impact on parents and student athletes.
It is only fair to also point out that 19 communities (or regional schools) in the area DO NOT have any fees for sports.
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Ah summer! The time when everyone deserves to spend a little quality time away from their jobs and spend it with family and friends! Unless you are school superintendent Milton Burnett. Seems that because of the budget cuts, staffing reductions and major turnovers of key people (think principals here) he has been playing catch-up all summer trying to get ready for the coming school year.
If you read the article in the Salem News, Superintendent's bid to carry over vacation is denied, and read the excepts from his letter to the school committee... it is hard to imagine them denying him a one-time exception to the rule concerning the number of days one can 'carry over' into the next year.
While I am not a fan or a foe of Mr. Burnett, I think he is totally correct on this one. It was the Mayor and the school committee who placed his department in the position where much more work than normal was required to be done (all without an assistant super) and this resulted in the necessity of missing one of the best perks of being employed - vacation time.
I wouldn't blame him if he simply didn't show up for the next 10 days and let the schools suffer... well actually I WOULD blame him and I wouldn't stand for it. BUT this is ultimately the "fault" of the Mayor and the school committee and they should have allowed this as being FAIR and not played the political game of denying it in the hopes of appearing to be on the side of fiscal responsibility after the Salem News has been trying to stir up trouble with the Annemarie DuBois pension "issue."
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I found this link to a blog run by the MAPC (Metropolitan Area Planning Council.) The Salem-Peabody Corridor Project is a new initiative that, I think, is focusing on the Rt. 128 - Main St. - Boston St. corridor and seeks to find improvements to facilitate improvements in traffic and community along the route. This was recently in the news when a group of planners, business people, city officials and citizens walked along the route (twice?) to get an 'on the ground' understanding of the project.
The link to the blog is Salem-Peabody Blog and the homepage of the project is Salem-Peabody Corridor Project.
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13 comments:
On Main-Boston Street: I can't emphasize enough how different it is to drive versus walk this. Main St feels like a tiny sidewalk teetering on the edge of a mighty river of 4 lanes of distracted SUVs and whatnot (Hey! Hang up and drive!). Contrast this with the calmer pace of through traffic in more successful downtowns in: Newburyport, Salem, Beverly, Melrose. To name just a few.
Peabody has to decide if it wants Main St to be a car sewer that delivers commuters to Salem, Swampscott and M'head as fast as humanly possible, or if it wants Main St to be a destination for actual human beings. For the record, I'll vote for the latter, and I DO VOTE. Traffic engineering (lane design, bike lanes or not, medians or not, sidewalk width) will then follow from this basic stance.
But don't count on your elected local reps (city councilors) to do the thinking on this. (And how many of them were on the walk, does anyone know?) They are too busy on the "what about the [insert distractive topical issue here]" issue to be proactive on traffic and liveability. (To say nothing of zoning, don't even get me started.) If there is a single proactive brain amongst the 11 of them, they are camouflaging it pretty well.
In regards to public employee compensation, the rule of thumb has always been they sacrifice salary in lieu of a better benefit package. However, what's been occurring over the past few years, is their salaries have been far outpacing that of the private sector.
We can't afford both (nor have we ever been able to). You can either have the salary or the benefits. Your call unions. I would argue, lets give them the salary and start cutting back on the more expensive benefit package.
Healthcare costs need to be contained (including lifetime heathcare benefits)and serious pension reform needs to be the TOP priority.
Listen, I'm a HUGE supporter of the school system. I think our tax rate is way too low. I think our school facilities are terrible and we need to build a new high school and middle school now. I would advocate raising taxes significantly to get those 2 projects going.
However, even I have a hard time figuring out why we're paying an elementary school principal $100k+/year salary? The job manages 20+ people & ~250 students. You then add in the 5+ weeks of vacation time, sick time, pensions, & healthcare costs and total compensation just goes through the roof.
How can I argue that we don't spend enough on the school system when these pigs at the trough are taking close to 85% of the overall budget.
Yet, rather than try to tackle these issues, our anointed leaders spend their time bumping their chest because they told Burnett he couldn't carry over 4 extra vacation days. Great job guys!!!
Give me a break...the robbers have left the bank but your happy because you found a nickel on the floor.
Anon, Your a moron, he got a vaca, he said he took 11 days. He wanted to carry over 14 not 4, he would of had 50 days of vaca if that happened! How would you like him to be out most of the school year if granted that request? Also what principle gets 5 weeks of vaca? They work during the summer idiot! Get your facts straight before spewing off at the keybord.
I believe the poster was referring to the many school principals here in Peabody (and everywhere) and NOT the superintendent of schools.
If I remember correctly, Burnett gets 25 vacation days and can 'carry over' up to 10 days into the next year.
The request was for additional days being carried over due to a very high demand on his time this summer - specifically due to budget cuts, layoffs and high ranking personnel turnover.
Now, I don't agree with the poster who says that the principal job is a minor one. In reality I know of managers who have far fewer responsibilities who earn in that range or higher in private industry.
The big issue here is that instead of making widgets or designing web applets, these principals are entrusted to teach future generations and make the process safe, sane and productive for students, faculty, parents and the community at large.
I don't think the job is really as low level as you make it out to be.
If I read the story correctly, the Super's contact enables him to carry over 10 vacation days from 1 year to the next. He was looking to carry over 14 days. Maybe I'm mistaken here, but I think that means he was only looking to carry over an additional 4 days (outside of what was allowed contractually).
Yes, Peabody principals get 5 weeks of vacation time plus a separate allotment of sick time (not sure how many days are allowed here).
When thinking about their pay, my question is a principal's role 30-50% more valuable than a teacher's?
How about when you compare the elementary school principal's salary to either the Middle School and High School positions. Both deal with much larger teacher and student ratio's, yet compensation is roughly the same (within 10%).
I don't think an elementary school principal is a low-level position, but shouldn't its pay structure be relative to the overall pay structure of the overall system?
Quick question....how are playgrounds maintained? Who's responsible, the city or private groups that have volunteered to maintain them?
I got to say, as a city, we have some pretty decent playgrounds. Yet every time I go to one, its painfully obvious how little maintenance are done to them.
Yesterday, we went to the playground at Cy Tenney. There's more sand on the playground than in the sand boxes, the gate is broken and doesn't open/close well, the bricks are all coming up...among plenty of other things observed. We've gone there a few times this spring/summer and each time I expected to see some improvement, yet have been continually disappointed.
Think this is another example of where jewels could be shined, but due to poor management and lack of maintenance they slowly become eyesores. We watched it happen with downtown, our schools, and now our parks.
Guess we can probably start taking bets on when the bikepath starts going downhill.
To borrow the old Bob Lobel saying...why can't be get educators like this?
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/burlington/articles/2010/08/29/burlington_high_principal_plans_to_incorporate_more_technology_in_learning/?p1=HP_Well_YourTown_links
To the last Anon:
Patrick Larkin was the principal of Peabody VM High School during the Niz reign.
Salem News Article here
I know...I was sad to see him leave our school system. He's obviously a forward thinking leader and yesterday's article in the Globe further suggests this. Wouldn't you just love to see that article written about Peabody?
I think many in the community would LOVE to see education become more important in Peabody... and yet the majority of voters will only question the cost and not the benefits of education.
Of course Peabody schools were in the news... all about the glory days with coach Niz. Frankly, I think athletics are fine... and many students who might not excel in academics can find a 'reason to go to school' in the sports opportunities. But we place much to high an importance on these games and far to less on the REAL mission of our school - the intellectual advancement of our culture.
On a side note: the computer initiatives being pushed in Burlington are not well though out in my opinion. The use of computers as a teaching tool simply do not meet the hype we hear about in the media. The technology is not ready, the software is non-existent, the training is unpaid and the payoff is nebulous at best.
Teaching students how to use computers, how to safely and intelligently use the vast resources of the internet, how to make computers assist them in completing the important tasks in their personal and (future) business lives... these are really important skills to learn.
PI
I don't question the benefits of a good education. I just question the belief that under the current system that more money=better education. Until we get a handle on how teachers are compensated for their actual ability rather than their time served. We need a system that rewards achievement. Nothing can replace a good teacher.....nothing. Their are just too many poor teachers that need to go. This combined with the fact that far to many parents do not participate in their kids education is the reason for poor performance (IMO). I would pay more taxes if I had the confidence that it would be spent wisely, until then I will fight tooth and nail to keep MY money.
What happened to the "free house for a city board member" post? Did one of the higher ups suggest it would "be in your best interest" to take it down?
I'm sorry I missed this last comment.
No one 'got to me' about this issue and I (eventually) posted the article.
What happened was I got concerned that maybe I was seriously missing SOMETHING HERE - and that Mr. Ruocco might have had some other dealings that I was unaware of... and I didn't wish to trash this man unduly.
After a while and more discrete inquiry, I decided that he really screwed the City and essentially had gotten away with it... AND was not being held accountable in the court of public opinion.
So I "unhid" the post and 2-3 days later the 'real' newspapers picked up the story.
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