The BPS central administrative team has decided to take a voluntary 4% pay cut for the 2010-11 school year, hoping-they said- that other BPS staff follow their example.
“It’s important that we ask everyone to take 4% reduction to minimize the impact of cuts on our instructional program,” said Deputy Superintendent Paul DeAngelis. “But if we are going to sit on one side of the table and ask people to lower their compensation, we should have already done those ourselves.”DeAngelis is one of eight individuals that accepted the voluntary pay reduction. Other members of the central administrative team include Superintendent David Larson, Assistant Superintendents M. Jon Dean, (Business) Debra Piesz, and (Curriculm) Dr. Steve Palmer; Executive Directors (Special Services) Kelly Friedland-Lovik and (Technology) Lisa Martinico, and Marcia Wilkinson, Director of Community Relations.
The $50 thousand that the district saves from this salary cut will go directly towards offsetting the district’s deficit. However, DeAngelis says administrators did not necessarily take a cut to save money, but rather to make a statement.
“I think what it does more than anything is it demonstrates that we as a central office team we understand how serious these budget cuts are,” said DeAngelis.
BEA vice president and Seaholm teacher Scott Craig was not impressed by the voluntary cut.
“While some central administrators might have taken a voluntary cut recently, some of those same administrators had extra increases in pay over the last 3-4 years that we teachers did not get,” said Craig.
Both BPS and the BEA have put in formal requests to begin bargaining for next years’ contracts. The central administrative team is hoping to find areas for cost reduction.
“We are looking at all our staffing levels and programs right now,” said DeAngelis. “We are looking at how we can reduce costs with either a reduction in service or restructuring the programs so we can do it with fewer people and fewer resources.”
Craig says the BEA has yet to take a firm stance on salary cuts, but the union will still fight for what they feel is in the best interest of their members.
“We aren’t taking a hard position as to what we are willing to accept or not accept at this point,” said Craig. “But we don’t feel that our members our overpaid.”
According to Craig, BEA feels that BPS should begin to consider using fund equity money to balance the budget rather than resort to drastic pay cuts.
“Although these are tough economic times, the district does need to use some of the fund equity to get us through these times,” said Craig. “It’s called the rainy day fund. We’ll, we think it’s definitely raining.”
Labor agreements do not expire until June 30th, but BPS wants to begin negotiating soon with hopes that it will save the district money.
“We had asked that all of that come to the bargaining table now rather than wait until the spring in hopes that if we make these concessions in these labor agreements, we won’t have to make some reductions necessary to balance the budget,” said DeAngelis.
BPS and BEA are expected to begin formal negotiations by the end of the month or the beginning of February.
“This is going to be a very tough year to negotiate,” said Craig.
After further looking at different options for restructure, administrators plan to begin making specific recommendations to the school board as soon as the January 19th school board meeting.
“[Administrators] make recommendations to the board, but the board has to make the final decisions,” said DeAngelis. “We’ll begin to present the board with many options that they’ll have to work through for the next 6 months.”
This is the second voluntary cut that the central administrative team has take in recent months. The first cut was made when each team member voluntary gave back a 1% pay raise for the current school year.
“The board was struggling with completing the contract for some of our non-affiliated groups, such as community education,” said DeAngelis. “When the board ruled not to give those groups a raise, the central administrative team voluntarily dropped their 1% raise. If those people can’t get a raise this year, than we shouldn’t accept a raise either.”
In the mean time, BPS hopes that the long pending sale of the district’s administrative building will finally come to a close in the next 30-40 days.
“We are negotiating with 2 proposals from 2 different groups,” said Deborah Piesz, Assistant Superintendent for Business Services. “Both proposals are for approximately $2.6 million.
BPS hopes to negotiate for more money to help offset the cost for relocating central office.
“The Board would like to see an offer of approximately 3 million,” said Piesz.
The district expects to move central office during the summer months and relocate to underutilized classrooms and office space at Seaholm or Groves. Although BPS will have to spend some of funds made from the building sale, Piesz is confident that the cost for renovations will be nowhere near the gross proceeds.
“We’re still trying to garner at least $2 million in net proceeds after the relocation costs have been paid for,” said Piesz.
