The Standard Times published an article today claiming that the Select Board received a survey from Ed Tavares, a retired school principal, on comparative salary data between Dartmouth and comparable towns. You can read it here. I have not seen this report and it has not been presented to the Select Board to my knowledge, so I won't comment on its findings. I will comment on a few...
... of the statements made in the news article. For instance, this one.(T)he report says Dartmouth has some 17 unfilled positions.
There are no "unfilled" positions in the town as far as I am concerned. If the job was eliminated, it is gone, no position, no unfilled position.
And this one, Mr. Tavares stressed the importance of Dartmouth salaries "staying in line" with peer communities, if the town is going to attract the best candidates. "If you are going to have people, you have to pay them a living wage,"
I think anyone making well over $100,000 is making a living wage. In fact, I would call them well paid. These are long time employees, so I don't buy the "best candidates" argument. These people have a lot of time invested towards a very lucrative retirement, they are not likely to be going anywhere.
Finally, there is this statement,Mr. Tavares, who was commissioned to do the study by the Select Board
To my knowledge, and it may have occurred before I was on the board but I doubt it, the Select Board did not commission this report. In fact, the comparative study, upon which the report is based, has never been released or presented to the Select Board in completed form. A draft was circulated some time ago but the final version has never been presented. The Select Board have never discussed the survey at all to this date. So this article was literally news to me.
I will ask that this report be forwarded to me and that it be included on the agenda at the next Select Board meeting.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
That's news to me!
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26 comments:
and so it begins.......
food for thought--- According to the Budget and Revenue Task Force Report, we currently spend 70% of expenditures on personnel on the town side. According to the Annual Report,total expenditures on the town side for Fiscal Year 1982, yes 1982(bear with me here), were $15,527,948. Total salary costs plus Bristol County Retirement Assessment,plus Comp,Multi-peril and Town Group insurances for fy82 were $3,506,103. This equates to personnel expenses growing from 22% in 1982 to 70% today.
Do our town employees really want to play this game?
Like I have said before, it doesn't matter what my neighbors have...if I can't afford it, I can't have it.
What can Dartmouth afford and what is Dartmouth willing to pay for services/schools/etc.
The way the economy is going, I can't imagine any overrides passing any time soon.
Hey Wally, you hear that? The SOUND of SILENCE.
The same article says "Mr Tavares receieves $500 off his tax bill for his time and effort". Hmmm
Yet the BOS has no knowledge of this report. Someone agreed to something here, there must be a signature somewhere !
To Wally's issue, it should come as no surprise the difference % of expenditure that goes to personnel. In 26 year's time health care costs alone have multiplied exponentially, and yes so have wages. Requirements for school staffing have also changed materially in 26 years. So while your analysis is interesting, I'm not sure how it applies to 2008 issues other than to imply living in 2008 costs more than it did in 1982. I'm not sure there are any 'games' the employees are playing.
to 4:26 am, No one said employees are playing games. Health care's rising costs are no surprise, but we need to find ways to handle this. This survey is informative but we are looking for solutions to our fiscal problems. Just today in the Chronicle, Greg Lynam of the Fin Com suggests a town wide freeze on salary increases. Joe Michaud of the SB says town and schools need to work together to avoid layoffs. Bill Trimble stressed the need for a town plan.
How long will town employees take a pay freeze? One year, if that? I'm not sure the schools will take a pay freeze, but above all we do need a plan so that we are more proactive and less reactive.
Also, in ST today, SAT scores are up. Congrats to Dartmouth schools!
Of course expenses rise but what does that have to do with the percentage of total expenditures being spent on personnel?
Yes, congrats to the school dept. on their SAT scores. Evidently conditions in our schools are not as deplorable as some would lead us to believe.
Anon 8:03 - Wally suggested the employees were playing games, not me. Yes congrats to the Dartmouth schools for their great showing on SAT scores!
To anon 8:29 - my point on rising expenses vs. per cent of expense that goes to personnel is that since 1982 there have been countless mandates from Fed and State levels that put demands on everything from conservation issues, health issues, school minimum requirements, trash removal, roadway requirements etc., that have a direct impact on the number of personnel required to meet those demands and requirements. Now you could argue that many of these things are superfluous or downright stupid (like the new requirement from the state to change road signs to increase their reflectivity!) but it makes a simple comparison of 1982 personnel costs to 2008 personnel costs much more complicated than a simple dollar for dollar comparison. That was the point I was trying to make.
Anon 8:32 - the SAT scores are a good sign of hard working teachers. The recent cuts to the system will take time to manifest themselves in test scores. I hope I am wrong but fear I am not.
Who authorized the $500 tax abatement for this unauthorized survey? Is this legal?
Also, why did this "expert" not include fringe benefits in the analysis? Without them, this survey is worthless!
Rising SAT scores are sign of hard working students.
its only worthless if the other cities included them and im sure they didnt. oh wait i dont agree with it so its worthless
Even if other cities did not include them, it is still worthless. How can you know what a town is paying for its employees if benefits are not included? Are they free?
Not playing games? First of all, town meeting commissioned the report, not the Select Board. I'm O.K. with that. So what does Gagne do? He takes the benchmark survey still in draft form and unvetted, gives it to a town employee( I would say he's retired but with these pension benefits>>>that's a different story)who does a spin-off report which is unvetted and never presented to the Select Board. Of course the conclusions are that everything is fine in employee compensation land. Nobody except town employees have seen it. Gagne then gives it to the press behind the Select Board's back all the while claiming that he was working under the direction of the Select Board, which is one big fat lie.
Yes I think the town employees are playing games.
Speaking of Gagne and games, did anyone see the article in the Standard Times about Wareham's executive session minutes. Our Select Board had better make it perfectly clear to Gagne that he must release the minutes or they will be the ones held accountable. They are, in fact, his boss and are accountable for making him release them. The only way to cover themselves is to reprimand Gagne for not doing his job pertaining to making executive session minutes on all closed matters available to the public.
well anon 3:43 if it is as you say it is the exec admin has some explaining to do. the study that was commissioned for $7,500 was supposed to be done by a professional outfit that does this sort of thing. If it was in fact turned over to a private individual for editing, or anything for that matter, before being presented to the SB or the public there's a problem.
anon7:05
You are confused. The $7,500 benchmark study was commissioned by the Select Board and was still in rough draft as far as they knew. A comparison of salaries was commissioned by Town Meeting. This is where Gagne, in his finite wisdom, decided to play games.
oops- retired school employee--pays his own pension(self funded)11% per year.(people complaining only wish they saved at that rate) town never had to pay into Social Security. sounds like a real crook to me.
Do you realise that the pension liability was over 30% of salary cost this year. Even if all employees paid 11%, which they don't, that's 19% of salary cost additional that taxpayers put in to the Bristol County Retirement System. Also, I would venture to guess that Mr Tavares was only paying 3% of his salary into that system, though you are correct that newer employees pay 11%. Mr Tavares is not a crook, however, and I respect him as a carreer educator, but it is time to abolish this retirement system for new hires. I don't care if it costs us more in the short term. We need to break this cycle for our childrens" sake.
Well geeeee Wally, it sounds to me like people aren't jealous about how much town workers are saving, they're just pissed off and tired of paying for a set for life, golden parachute retirement system.
taxpayers dont put a dime into the teachers retirement-not even social security that educators dont collect anyway. "i would venture to guess" you have a lot of company here.
anon 8:01 - you're right, I'm more confused than ever. Just how much effort are we expending and time are we wasting chasing salary comparisons and benchmark surveys? And how long will all this take. This $7500 benchmark survey seems to be in rough draft for months now. I dont understand the hold up, nor why this current salary review has not been formally addressed. We seem to sppin a lot of wheels here.
The numbers I gave on the retirement fund are for the town side. Mr Tavares is on the school side. Anon 10:17 is wrong when they say "taxpayers dont put a dime into the teachers retirement". The situation is different with teachers in that "property taxpayers" don't make up the unfunded difference but state taxpayers do. You better believe that when the state kicks in the unfunded difference out of the state budget, it has an effect on how much school aid they are able to give municipalities. I would support any retirement system for public employees if it had a proper cap on just how much taxpayers have to kick in. Sorry about the confusion.
Didn't our state retirement fund managers just get bonuses for losing the least amount of money?
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