[originally transmitted on Elwood Community Network, 5/16]
Tomorrow, from 2 PM to 10 PM, in the cafeteria of Elwood Middle School, we have our annual vote for Board of Education trustees, as well as the annual School Budget Vote. I urge everyone to participate and vote on an informed and unemotional basis.
Both the BOE election and the budget vote are obviously important, and while people may understandably disagree about the size of the budget increase, I am most concerned about the risk to the district if we were to get new trustees who might not be sufficiently diligent in representing the District, its students, and its taxpayers, as the time approaches for a new teachers union contract, which currently expires on July 1st of 2014. Whomever is elected tomorrow will be on the Board through June 30th of 2014, and will be one of those who are responsible for renegotiating that contract.
That fact is all the more important considering the financial crisis that this and every District increasingly faces, because of past and threatened future State actions, and energy and health insurance escalation, as well as the impacts on so many residents due to the long-term recession.
It is always better to have positive reasons to support someone for election, and I think that this community is blessed by the quality of two of the candidates: (1) Bill Gutekunst, candidate for the seat currently held by Mike Kaszubski; and, (2) Mike LaMena, candidate for the seat currently held by Patty Matos.
All of you received my summary of the BOE Candidates Debate, which contained not only responses from the four candidates but also an analysis of some key points for the district, its students, and its residents. That summary contains my analysis of the specific reasons that both Mr. Gutekunst and Mr. LeMena are the best candidates for their respective races, and if you did not retain a copy, but want to read it again, you may also access the piece on my blog, Elwood Illuminations (http://elwoodilluminations.blogspot.com/2011/05/boe-candidates-debate-and-other.html).
I will personally vote for Bill Gutekunst, and for Mike LaMena, and would urge everyone to consider the very positive reasons, outlined in the BOE Candidates Debate summary, for doing the same.
But, there are also reasons for me to have concern regarding their opponents, James Tomeo and Jack Schwartz, respectively, and I think you should know why, in my opinion, that is the case.
During the Question and Answer period, the answers given by both Mr. Tomeo, and by Mr. Schwartz, seemed much too similar on several points.
One of these points related to the previous cost-reduction offers to the district, over the past months, by the Elwood Teachers Alliance, which is the union for Elwood's teachers. As outlined in the previously-referenced summary from the Candidates Debate, Mr. Tomeo and Mr. Schwartz seemed very sympathetic to the union's offer. However, that second offer would have required the District to extend the teachers contract for another two years, at an assured annual increase (plus Step) for those two years, and the cost for that extended period would have been much more than the partial freeze which the teachers union would have agreed to take.
In one of his replies, Mr. Gutekunst pointed out that the benefit to the district would have been approximately $300,000 for each of the next two years, or about $600,000 total, but the cost to be weighed against that short-term benefit was $1,000,000 for each of the two years extended.
I don't know about you, but if some bank was offering me $1,000,000 in 2015, if I would give them a deposit of $300,000 in 2012, I would be a fool not to do that. That would be one super rate of return, something that Bernie Madoff would have been happy to offer his investors.
Fortunately for the health and well-being of the District, the Board of Education rejected the union's offer, and this paragraph, which I cited in my community commentary on April 16th (and which is available on Elwood Illuminations at: http://elwoodilluminations.blogspot.com/2011/05/district-has-posted-reply-to-2nd.html), was the heart of the Board's reasoning:
"The request to extend your contract for two years, through June 2016, in light of diminishing state aid, and a looming tax cap with no specific guarantee of mandate relief, leaves us unable to extend a further financial commitment to your unit members. Simply put, we are unable to write you a check now without knowing if we will be able cover the expense. If we were to make such a commitment, the future increase of salary expense you proposed will put us above the tax cap and our only recourse would be to eliminate jobs and/or valuable programs."
I find it amazing that Mr. Tomeo and Mr. Schwartz could not appreciate the danger, for the District, which would have been created if the Board had accepted the teachers union's offer.
These two candidates also had a close approach when it came to discussing a potential State cap for superintendents' compensation. They conveniently ignored the importance of looking at the compensation for a superintendent of schools in contrast with the compensation for a district's teaching staff. Neither took the logical step of comparing the materiality of cost for a superintendent (typically between 1/4 of 1% to 1/2 of 1% of a school district's budget) with the cost for a teaching staff (typically between 65% to 70% of a school district's budget). Neither spoke about compensation from the perspective of merit.
Is it possible that ignoring the elephant in the room, in favor of focusing upon the mouse, is a tactic?
Having done a FOIL of the Nominating Petitions for all candidates, I do have my concerns about the ability of Mr. Tomeo and Mr. Schwartz to maintain independence and to be diligent when it comes to union contracts.
But, let's vote for Mr. Gutekunst and Mr. LaMena for the very positive reasons that we all have, and let's hope that Mr. Tomeo and Mr. Schwartz evolve in their own understanding of the economics of running a school district, and the importance of understanding a Net Present Value approach when considering offers.
Jerry Hannon
About Me
- Jerry Hannon
- After a thirty year career at Chase, serving as a Managing Director and Global Relationship Manager, I took early retirement in the summer of 2000, and that enabled me to become active in community, school district, and town activities. Since 2004, I have been a member of the Elwood School District's Citizens Finance/Budget Advisory Committee, and since 2005 I have been a member of its Audit Committee, and serve on three other committees of the district. During the 2006/07 school year I was President of the Elwood PTA Council, and I remain active in PTA activities. In the community I serve as EVP for Community Affairs of the Old Chester Hills Civic Association, and served the Town of Huntington as a member of its Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee. For thirty five years, I have been a Director of the NY Council of the Navy League, and currently am Chair of its Audit Committee. A Vietnam Veteran, I retired as a Commander in the US Navy Reserve, and previously commanded two Naval Security Group reserve units.