Saturday, March 26, 2011

Are We Missing Something Here?

Below are the collective bargaining agreements for several local school districts.

Western Springs Dist. 101: http://d101.org/htdocs/StaffMedia/mryan/contract.pdf (appendix C)

Each of these school districts has a provision in their collective bargaining agreements concerning retirement, TRS contributions, ERO, penalties, etc. except one. Can you guess who?

Sadly, it is Pleasantdale.

Pleasantdale School District renewed their collective bargaining agreement in September and six years after the letter pictured below came out, there is still no verbiage in the agreement in regard to retirement. Wow.

Rick Rigley, now up for re-election, was the school board's representative when negotiating the contract.

Not only do we need a new board, for letting this slip by, leaving the district unprotected once again, but it sounds like we need a new superintendent, business manager and legal team for not even noticing.

Who is watching out for the district? Certainly not our current school board members (with the exception of Karen O'Halloran), our administration or even our legal team.

We already incurred $132,000 in penalties this year, so maybe it is a good thing we have a $15.3 million dollar fund balance. We can use it for all the penalties we will be getting.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Politics!!
Unfortunately, politics today is a system where those are in control enjoy power to benefit their cravings (ego). It's not about ethics, or what is best for the masses; it is about satisfaction of control. These people do not judge themselves on a job well done, but only on how well they have controlled the situation to benefit their delights (ego). Early on the US had people that were philosopher statesmen. Even though they had more wealth than the masses, they tried to do what was best for every American. The fact that some in control do not admit mistakes and blame others for the problems, is an indicator that they are not philosopher statesmen.

Anonymous said...

So true!

Only I would substitute wallet for cravings and themselves for their delights.

Fast Freddy said...

The truly sad part is that no one will take any blame for this. The two incumbents that were at the forum never talked about fixing the problem and would only put blame on the legislators. Mr. Northwestern talks down to everyone and thinks he is smarter than everyone but I guess he didn't do his homework on this subject. He was one of the school board members that were on the negotiation team for the district. Isn't this something someone should know something about. Do we need a new superintendent, business manager, lawyer, or school board? They all failed the taxpayers on this matter. Are we still liable for the rest of the teacher's contracts that were just negotiated in the fall? I guess this is a part of their mission that we won't hear about, failing the taxpayers. Maybe our letter from the Illinois Association of School Boards got lost in the mail. All the other surrounding district's got their letter and made appropriate changes to cover themselves. Really makes you think?

Richey Rich said...

You want to talk about propaganda? I just got a flyer in the mail for the three incumbents and they state that they are decreasing your tax burden and are protecting your tax dollars. If having to pay a $132,000, yes a $132,000 fine with taxpayer dollars is decreasing my tax burden and protecting my tax dollars is not the biggest propaganda this election then I don't know what is. We are the only feeder school to LT that is not protected from fines for teachers retiring early. These three need to tell the whole truth and admit their errors and stop blaming legislature changes for the fine.