At the Special Town Meeting last night I listened to many of my fellow townspeople speak about how home values decrease when towns vote down school overrides (perhaps home values decrease in towns where the school district is under-performing and overspending? No. Can’t be that because all schools are institutions of altruism and are run by charitable, generous, selfless people who give their service for practically nothing!) and how for a mere fifty cents a week, you too can “feel really good about yourself” while doing the right thing for our children (by the way, stay tuned and I hope to provide the name and address where everyone in town can send this particular gentleman their annual invoice for reimbursement for the tax increase. Hey, he offered! Really, he did!) and how wonderfully transparent and accountable (I think perhaps I should be honored that Mr. Higginbottom found what I had to say so threatening that he personally used his time to rebut my statement – albeit without one shred of actual evidence to back up his drivel) and believable our fiscally responsible School Committee and Superintendent are.
I wonder how many of the parents in the crowd are actually informed about what really goes on behind closed doors in the running of their kids’ schools. And I wonder how many of them will feel the same way about forking over more money every year when their kids are grown and have moved away from Yarmouth. I hear little of substance from any of the proponents of the override. Yet, most of the individuals who spoke against the override were articulate in describing our very real, factual concerns.
Chris Greeley rose, after the vote in favor of the override, and requested that the people of Yarmouth send a loud, strong message to the School Committee and ask that a Finance Subcommittee be formed to perform a detailed line item review and to make recommendations on the draft budget. She eloquently and articulately demanded the transparency and accountability that is so obviously lacking from the School Committee and the Superintendent and she backed up the demand with a perfectly feasible resolution to do so. Congratulations Chris. I wish I’d thought of that – what’s more, I wish our School Committee had thought of that!
It would be nice to think that the voices of the taxpayers will be heard loud and clear today at the polls if the override gets voted down [again], but we know it will likely just lead to another infamous tent meeting where the school district will stack the crowd (through the use of the district’s telephone announcement system and resources, no less) with its own proponents from Dennis and force their override on the taxpayers of Yarmouth. You are wily, Superintendent Woodbury, I’ll give you that. Never mind that Dennis has its own issues beyond whether or not the district should be granted the override. Dennis is more concerned with the formula of who pays more for what so this is a great way to make Yarmouth pay “its fair share”. How shortsighted of those Dennis residents not to understand that in the end, we are all just paying too much into a school district which will bankrupt our towns. This overspending cannot be sustained.
One person rose the point of “fixed costs” like retirement costs, which is outside the control of the School Committee and the administration. However, she apparently doesn’t make the correlation between the high retirement costs being derived at by paying a percentage of the salaries being paid to current employees! When the gentleman who told us all that our teachers are paid “below the average teachers’ salaries on the Cape and well below the average teachers’ salaries in the state”, I wanted to stand up and ask every person sitting in that room how many of them (not their household) made over $70,000 for working full-time the entire year. If our teachers in this district make below the state average, then there is one thing to learn – teachers in this state are more than generously compensated for their 180 days of service! And the “fixed retirement costs” are directly correlated to the salaries paid as a result of the contracts with unions as negotiated by our school administration.
Mr. Edwards rose to speak about the fact that the schools are forced to spend money in certain ways by the state, pointing to special education as an example.
I say to Mr. Edwards, make your budget clear and informative, publish it on your website and make it widely available to the taxpayers and perhaps you will find the understanding and latitude you are looking for in the public. I, for one, would love to know exactly how much we are spending on special education. I would like to be able to compare that number to other districts to see if a disproportionate amount is allocated to special education.
I took the time to print the pages of the 2009 Town Report which lists all the salaries for all employees of the school district and to count just the teachers and teachers assistants and special education assistants and came up with a total of 457. This does not include guidance counselors, department heads, occupational therapists, custodians, secretaries and/or administration. I then counted all of the teachers and assistants who hold positions directly related to special education.
Of the 457 employees of this district who are teaching or assisting teachers, 217 of them are special education teachers and special education assistants!
The most telling point of what Mr. Edwards had to say was that he admitted openly that the district’s budget needs to be “demystified”! Thank you, Mr. Edwards, a member of the School Committee, for confirming my allegation that the taxpayers deserve transparency and accountability. But be careful what you ask for when you ask that we all get involved by attending meetings.
I’m wondering if you’ll be welcoming me with open arms to all of the Committee meetings in the months to come.
DY Voice of Reason 