Wednesday’s agenda was delivered to me today. Pretty mundane stuff. Oh, except for the raises for the CEO and CFO. The strangest part is at least two board members were not a part of the process. On June 28th during executive session we were handed a pay scale that a fellow board member had made up. I was informed that it was based on the administrative salary schedule our CEO formulated two months ago. I questioned the timeliness of this move considering number one- we had not given our CEO and CFO goals, two- we have not come up with an evaluation form, let alone evaluated them, and three- we have negotiations with three unions coming up in March. How can our CEO manage successful negotiations that would be advantageous to the taxpayer, after handing out raises to the administrative staff and getting a raise himself.
I would love to be able to tell you what the proposed raises are, but this information was sent in the form of a consumer price index chart for wage earners. As of posting time, I have not received a return phone call from the board president to clarify this issue. It looks as if the raises will be 4.5%. I know that’s just like the raise you got this year right? You see the amount was veiled for a reason. Someone doesn’t want the average Joe to know how much they are getting. I mean, every other contract we approve has the yearly wage plainly visible.
But the real kicker comes earlier in the agenda. We are laying off two food service employees "due to a lack of funds and a projected deficit". So, as you can see, as I’ve stated many times in the past, it’s not the kids that are important. It’s how much money people can earn of our tax money. So next year, you will pay more for your kids breakfast, you’ll pay more for your kids milk, you’ll be short two employees, but our employees will be paid well.
Oh and the board will be back to the voters for more money next year too. See you at the polls.
Table 6. Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W): Selected areas, all items index Scroll down about 2/3 of the page to the line "Cleveland-Akron, OH." This line was highlighted in the information in our packet.
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3 comments:
Please allow me to comment on how we might proceed to solve the problems related to the similarities and differences in our community.
In many ways this proposal intends to 'involve families, churches, businesses and community members' with or without our pilot and cabin crew. We are still sitting on the tarmac in CFO/SL. We have been gathering information via the blogs.
We have yet to hear from our pilot and cabin crew. Are we going to Hawaii or Bahgdad?
Perhaps the passengers on our flight can help by doing an inventory of their time, money, and quality of problem solving skills. We can take our cue from Flight 91. When the passengers realized they were faced with an external threat beyond the coping skills of their pilot and cabin crew then they stopped following all of the normal rules. And, they rapidly adapted by planning a key intervention to take control of their environment (aircraft). They did not ask for permission to take control. They just did it. And, they died heros in the process.
We must realize that Flight 91 did not overtly vote on their leaders. Without the details of the event and with a knowledge of team building, we can see that someone facilitated the attack team by establishing the timetable for their attack plan. And, because they were self-organizing someone clarified the attack methods. Who did what was not important. But, the fact that a useful action was done at a useful moment in time was critical to the task.
How can we apply the navigational metaphor to our problem solving process in CFO/SL? Here is how. We need to:
1. Know each other better.
2. Clarify our shared goals.
3. Operate in an honest, open, and responsible manner.
This means we: 1. Develop agreements, 2. Document our agreements with simple sentences, 3. Capture the on-going dialogue without a time limit for problem statements, 4. Assume that we have the power to solve our problems.
If you (our passengers) can agree to use the above guidelines then I will volunteer to facilitate an 'on-going' public discussion. My commitment is to facilitate without an agenda -- until other people can fill the same role.
Lou Schott lschott@neo.rr.com
We must definitely make an outcry to Columbus. We must also follow up on that by voting out anyone in Columbus who doesn't perform as expected on issues that are important to us.
At the same time, Columbus has had K-12 education on the backburner for quite some time. As long as nothing changes in Columbus, our local districts have NO CHOICE but to learn to live within the means that taxpayers can afford. Sooner or later, they will learn that this means if the people that pay you aren't getting raises, you don't get 'em either.
Also don't forget that eventually Columbus will probably raise our state taxes to give school districts more money. No matter how you slice it, it all still comes out of our pockets.
Even if it isn't deliberate, this just stinks of the us vs. them dynamic. I would think the Board President would WANT to table this until Mrs. Gunter gets back to dispel even the appearance that this is to rob her of a vote.
If this BOE is to work together, they must make an effort to be considerate of each other. Not bringing major issues such as this to the table while one member is out of town is just one such consideration.
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