The School Committee’s Gambler’s Budget

At the Wednesday, November 3 meeting of the Common Council, Dr. Richard Wallace, Associate Superintendent of Schools, may have revealed more than he intended about how the School Department makes its budget. Responding to questions from one of the councilors regarding their “hidden in plain sight” employees -- staff that had never been budgeted into the Central Administration Salaries line item, in part leading to the half million dollar deficit this year -- Dr. Wallace told the truth. He stated that the School Department’s priority is to budget for senior teachers, operating from year to year with the hope that teacher retirements and terminations will cover the unbudgeted employees in the Central Administration Salaries line item. It’s unfortunate that the School Department wouldn’t choose to hire replacement teachers with that money, as opposed to covering the salaries of the unbudgeted, unaccounted for clerical staff of the School Department’s Central Administration.

It would appear, however, that the School Department’s budgetary “tool” isn’t serving them well, given that they’ve overspent their budget for the last four years in a row. (The Mirror is aware that the Superintendent took out a full page ad to refute this claim, but the School Department ledger reveals overspending each and every year for the last four years. Please see the Mirror’s previous post dated October 21 for details). Truth in budgeting is a good solid business practice not to mention a legal and, dare we say, ethical requirement. Good decision-making depends on accurate information in the budget. Ask any CEO in private industry how long their company would last if they engaged in the budgetary shell game consistently played by the School Department.

It now makes sense why there are not enough teachers; the school department has to make sure it can cover over $6,000 in weekly salaries that it failed to budget, leading the School Committee to continually lay over spending requests for more teachers – because the money to hire them is not there.


Union Benefits for Non-Union Employees

Another interesting piece of information that came out of the November 3 Common Council meeting was the providing of union negotiated benefits for non-union employees. Mayor Ragucci stated that, after having met with the teacher’s union, he put $540,000 on the table for the School Committee to provide a 2% incentive for union employees to accept an 85-15% split on health insurance. The agreement that was negotiated with the School Committee then provided the health insurance incentive for non-union employees. Additionally, the School Committee is also funding a 1% increase, supposedly to sweeten the arrangement, while City Hall employees only received a 2% incentive to take the 85/15% split on health insurance.

Also revealing was the range of raises for the non-union staff, which includes both Central Administration clerical staff and school directors. Although the School Committee insists these groups are union, the fact of the matter is that collective bargaining would result in equitable raises for all. Interestingly enough, Central Administration clerical staff received raises that ran from 7.4% - 14.6% (courtesy of a September raise for one of the employees) and 7.5%-18.1% for Everett School Administrators, which includes directors. This leads one to believe that these groups are NOT union, and therefore, these raises are entirely discretionary. In other words - the raises didn‘t have to be negotiated or handed out. These entirely discretionary raises are even more interesting when one considers that the School Committee handed them out when they didn’t have enough teachers.

It should also be noted that, although the School Department claims that the clerical employees are unionized, the group representing the clerical staff in “negotiations” is not recognized as such by any organized labor association. Memo to the Custodian Union - don’t negotiate a thing until you learn what the School Committee intends to hand out to the Central Administration clerical staff. Clearly, they have more power than any recognized union in this City.