Good evening
Madame Chair and members of the Board.
Thank you for your time and service dedicated to the School Board. Thank you for the opportunity for public
comment. My name is Tad Larson and I’m
here as a citizen and tax payer to support the teachers efforts to settle their
contract.
My family
has a long history of supporting the education system in our community. My great-great grandfather, Henry Hill,
donated the land that this very building sits on. My children represent the sixth generation of
my family to go through our local schools.
We choose to live here because of the priority placed on the education
system and the public services that make this such a great community to live
in, work in and raise a family.
Our
community supported a bond when the economy was going down hill because we
believe in the teachers. We did this to
provide proper facilities, retain our current staff and encourage new staff to
teach here.
I’m here to
encourage you to settle the teacher’s contract now and not wait for a
mediator. I understand the building
administrators and District Office administrators were already given a
raise. That seems backwards since these
two groups are actually closer to market value than our teachers and classified
staff.
I also
understand that the last offer from the District Office included a pay raise,
which is long overdue. This raise means
very little if the teachers health insurance and out-of-pocket expenses
increase at the same time. I’ve been
told by teachers that there is a priority on classroom size from the District
Office. While classroom size has been a
legitimate issue for years, I find this hard to take seriously when the
District Office just closed one of our elementary schools.
I work for a
public employer with a multi-million dollar budget. We have to answer to the public as well and
we can’t in good conscience give ourselves raises before contracts are
settled. I know personnel costs are the
largest expense in most operations.
Personnel are also our biggest asset.
We need to keep the great teachers we have in our community. The only way to ensure that they stay is to
compensate them at market value. Any of
our teachers could work in a neighboring district less than 30 miles away and
have a salary and benefits package that’s worth more than 10,000 dollars per
year.
I don’t
think that taking this to mediation will be good for our community when you
have the ability to settle it now.
Mediation will only prolong the outcome and raise questions with the
community about why it took so long. If
the mediator favors the teachers proposal it looks bad for the decision makers
at the District Office. If they mediator
favors the District Office’s proposal it could lead to a strike. A strike is a lose/lose for everyone. If a strike does occur, most of the community
will side with the teachers. Parents and
grandparents will be frustrated when you can’t keep the schools open during a
strike. The tax payers will lose trust
with how their money is managed.
In the past
few years it’s been easy for public employers to not provide increases to
salary and benefits based on their ability to prove lack of revenue. That’s not the case lately. Most public employers have been settling
contracts with increases because revenue is up.
In years past, the teachers and the community understood why there
weren’t increases when revenue was down.
Now the teachers and the community don’t understand why the revenue
isn’t being reinvested in salary and benefits.
Please settle
contract now and don’t put the teachers and the community through the mediation
process. You are all professionals and
we think that it’s reasonable to offer a contract that puts our teachers back
in line with the market value.
Steve Love,
you represent my area of the community.
Please take this issue into the executive session with the rest of the
Board and try to resolve this before it gets any worse.
Thank you
all for your time!
