June 10, 2008
Senate forecast for schools: partial sunshine
The Senate Republican Majority's plan to "rein in runaway spending" at school districts, announced in a news release Monday, would put a bright new spotlight on the salaries and benefits of school administrators--but only administrators.
The Senate's "Taxpayer Empowerment and Accountability"(TEA) plan is its response to news stories and hearings about outside lawyers with government pensions as well as retired school superintendents who work as interim superintendents or consultants while collecting sizeable pensions. Newsday, which uncovered many of the abuses, reports on the plan.
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who has yet to introduce "TEA" as in bill form, said the "far-reaching proposal" will:
"...mitigate problems that have resulted from school districts paying exorbitant salaries and generous pensions to school superintendents, as well as waivers routinely granted by the State Education Department that have cleared the way for superintendents to collect enormous salaries and pensions at the expense of local taxpayers. Taxpayers need and deserve relief, and this is a good place to start."
A Senate Majority press release describes the key disclosure provision as follows:
...[School] districts would be required to make all information relating to payroll, pension benefits and contracts of school administrators available on their web sites....The measure requires school districts to provide the public with at least 72 hours to review all contracts before the school board votes on that contract.
It sounds like a solid step in the right direction--but it also begs a fairly obvious question: How about the salaries and benefits of teachers? Shouldn't the public be able to review teachers' contracts at least 72 hours before they are voted on by the school board?
Indeed, why not require release of detailed information--including projected fiscal impacts--on all public employee contracts before they are ratified by either side? Too often such information is now kept from public view. For example, the Buffalo News last week reported on a tentative contract between Buffalo and white collar workers at City Hall. The agreement calls for a 17.2 percent pay increase over 5 years, but "city officials would not divulge the contract's long-term cost to the city until the union vote is finalized," the paper said. Of course, it's not the union members who will have to bear those costs.
(The union since has ratified the contract, which "will cost the city about $6.1 million through mid-2011, or an average of about $1.5 million a year." the News"reports today.)
Also noteworthy are anti-conflict of interest provisions of the Senate plan, which:
...would prevent school board attorneys from representing superintendents in their personal contract negotiations with the board, or in their personal legal work, as well as prohibit school board attorneys with spouses employed by districts from representing them in contract talks.
The Senate says its measure also "restricts school board members who have relatives who are employed by the district." Details on those restrictions were not immediately provided, however.
Other provisions of the TEA plan would: would bar outside attorneys from collecting pensions and health benefits; limit waivers that allow retired superintendents to work as interim superintendents; restrict "golden parachutes" that guarantee an employee significant benefits if terminated; reduce paper work; and eliminate unfunded mandates.
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