Notes from our School Board Meeting May 10th, 2005
We arrived last night to the sight of a dozen or so demonstrators on Colchester Avenue, greeting us with placards in support of the livable wage campaign for all school district employees, and especially paraeducators. By seven o’clock, everyone was inside, and we heard from a variety of vigorous supporters for the campaign, including a representative from the City Council which passed its own livable wage resolution several years ago. For those who don’t know, school district finances and contracts are under the direction of the school board, and not the city administration. All the commissioners and administrators I have spoken with are in support of the idea. So why is this still an issue? How does the Board make this happen? Here’s what I understand so far:
If we pass a livable wage resolution, our lowest-paid employees would get a pay raise to a little more than $12.00/hour, and it would cost the district roughly one million dollars in the next budget year. I’m not sure I understand what this would do to other salaries. For example, if I am a paraeducator who has been in the system for a while, and I already make $12. per hour, does my salary go up too? Or do new employees make the same wage I do?
There have been several comments made to the effect that “if we could fund the field renovation, why not this. . .” Here’s an important thing to understand. A great deal of what happens in our schools at present is funded by specific grants and bond issues. The athletic field renovation at BHS is a good example of an improvement funded by a bond issue combined with an enormous, specific state grant. Thanks to another bond issue passed in March, we now have one million dollars per year for infrastructure improvements – like the facade repairs and new windows at Edmunds. If we cancelled either of these projects, we would not generate funds for increased salaries. Bonds and grants pay for specific programs and bricks-and-mortar things, not health care and pay raises. So, I have learned that financing apples is not the same as financing oranges.
The pool of funds from which the million dollars could be taken comes from state tax-generated funds calculated through Acts 60 and 68, along with the citywide school tax that voters have the opportunity to approve or vote down each March. The money available to the district will be affected this coming year by our property reappraisal, and by the lower numbers of students in our schools. Like every other district in the country, we are obliged to pay the costs of unfunded and expensive federal mandates including most famously “No Child Left Behind.” We also are about to enter into three separate contract negotiations (not a good time to join the Board!) that are complicated by the dynamics of health care costs: in the last two years, this portion of our budget increased by 9% and then 13%. All of this means that we won’t be able to vote on a livable wage for at least a few months, as all of this gets sorted out.
The truth is that, after we subtract things we are required by law to pay for, from the funds we really can control, we are left with lots of competing claims on not a large discretionary pool. It would feel great to say yes to everyone, but then if the school tax gets voted down, we have to make quick cuts in an atmosphere of panic, and that’s not a good way to make a budget. I pray that city voters angry about property tax hikes won’t express their rage in voting down the one tax they can vote down – the school tax.
I do want to emphasize that this is what I understand SO FAR, and also that my sense is that the Board really does seem fervently to want the livable wage. I will keep studying the issues involved, and keep you posted! Thanks for your responses too.
Amy Werbel
Ward 5 School Board Commissioner
awerbel@bsdvt.org