I have sent an email to all Board of Education members with the exception of Jack Lewis (total waste of time) the question listed in the blog below ( A Challenge to the Board of Education).
Lets see how many have the courtesy to reply
Can you please explain why you are not holding all of the school employees equally accountable for its financial situation?
I would just love for even one of you to have the decency to tell the public who elected you to serve them why you are targeting just one section of employees for cost savings. You just concluded a deal with teachers that required them to pay FAR LESS than you are asking support staff to pay (both as a percentage of earnings and in actual dollar amounts)and they are naturally the least able financially to do so.
Make some sense of that for the community if you will.
I know some board members read this blog, including you Cory Mabery.
Here is a question I would like answered. If as a board you can give a directive to the school’s administration to reduce healthcare benefits for certain school employees to employee only why has that not been extended to ALL school employees, remaining support staff, teachers and god forbid administrators?
Surely that will save the school a phenomenal amount of money.
I certainly cannot profess to know the minds of our Board of Education, but I think I know enough to give you a guide on where individual members stand on the outsourcing issue:
Jack Lewis: Ringleader, BIG, BIG. BIG supporter of outsourcing.
Jerry Schlaud: Already made his mind up – another supporter of outsourcing.
Ginger Russell: Against outsourcing. Believes in a shared responsibility approach.
Kevin McCrory: Also against outsourcing, and favors a more widespread approach to cost reductions.
Rosann Clark: Ex-teacher, was elected on a no outsourcing platform, not sure that is the case anymore. Probably favors outsourcing as long as it does not affect teachers.
Cory Mabery: Cannot get a read on him, he seems to have a genuine care for the situation. Possibly undecided, but will probably vote to outsource.
Cathy Severance: Do not know her well enough to postulate an opinion.
The public should approach all members of the Board of Education and voice your opinions and views. At the end of the day they are there to represent YOU.
It’s hard to disseminate truth from rumor in this town but word on the street is that Mr. English and Ms. Bruff have “Four votes they need in their pockets” IF that is true it smacks of collusion.
When a business gets into financial trouble and calls in an outside company for help, be it a specialist asset management company, an accounting company, or even a business consulting firm, they all start at the same place when trying to reconstitute the business, the biggest expense. Yet here we have the so-called “brains” of our business doing exactly the opposite. They are starting with the lowest paid (and in actual fact have NO plans to even try to save with the really big salaries in the district). Does that really make any financial sense whatsoever?
Clearly the answer is no. So why do it? Why have our Board of Education and administration chosen this path. The question has been posed by many but never answered. Clearly economics is not a strength of either Mr. English or Ms. Bruff.
Why stop at support staff? Why not outsource the whole administration? Last time I checked, the top ten administrators cost the district in excess of $1.4 million. Can you imagine the savings to be made there? Alan Piwinski was “outsourced” for the final months of his career as a superintendent so we all know it CAN BE DONE, so please, Board of Education, if you demanded the outsourcing of support staff why did you stop there? What about outsourcing the teachers? Has anyone even looked into any of these ideas? Why JUST the support staff?
How did this drive to outsourcing start? Mr. English has claimed he has been instructed by the Board of Education to look into outsourcing the support staff. Try as hard as I might, I cannot find anywhere in any board meeting minutes a resolution to do so. I have raised this point personally with two Board members who claim it never happened. Someone is lying. Who is it I wonder…
Ever since I arrived here in North Branch I have witnessed a divided Board of Education. Manipulated by personal gain, greed, and simply the wish to have power. Ten years later, little has changed. There are still outside factions who have their own agendas and who wish to control and manipulate. All I have ever wanted to see is a board made up by 7 men and women who will speak their own minds, give their own thoughts, negotiate with honesty and integrity and listen to the community they SERVE. What I have witnessed is a trail of lies and deceit, a board separated on grounds other than the topics they discuss and ultimately a Board that rather than strengthen the district they serve have weakened it, ripped it into many pieces, made it vulnerable and given it very little guidance and leadership in return.
It is a travesty and an embarrassment to North Branch. I wonder how many people are aware that outside of our school district we are laughed at as a misguided entity, that we do things in a backward fashion. Well believe it, because it is absolutely true. This community has placed their trust in people to do a job and many (and you know who you are) have abused that trust in a way I find unforgivable. I hear all the time is that North Branch is all about the children. It is not. It is all about power and those who want it to further their own ends. The children do not come first at all, so please let us not use that phrase again until it can be spoken with a degree of honesty and integrity.
When Mr. English presented himself to the North Branch Board of Education and indeed other interested parties he professed himself not to be an “outsourcing” guy. Current events have proven his words somewhat hollow. I think it is fair to say not only is he an “outsourcing guy” but he is obsessed with the process. How else can you explain his actions? He wants the entire support staff to in effect take a 66% wage cut while at the same time proposing ZERO cuts to his administration. He has just concluded a contract with the teachers that actually ended up ADDING to the schools deficit. What kind of mindless economics is that? You will see it several times on this blog. The guy is clearly out of his depth and for certain has an agenda outside of the Board of Educations mandate.
North Branch Outsourcing 