Calais eyes trimming teacher raises

CALAIS – A recommendation to cut teacher salary increases has met with about as much enthusiasm as a flat tire on the interstate.

Mayor Eric Hinson, armed with a letter signed by a majority of the City Council, met Monday night with the school committee at a budget work session.

In the letter, the councilors noted that the proposed 2001-02 school budget was about $177,000 more than last year’s. “With a reported $130,000 in pay increases and $130,000 in health insurance increases, you have done well to get that figure,” the councilors said.

The councilors said that rather than take the traditional route – cutting teachers, maintenance and textbooks – the solution might be to ask teachers to forgo half of their negotiated pay increase during the next two years, and contribute half of the increase in their health insurance costs for this year and next year.

“I have suggested to Superintendent [May] Bouchard that if the teachers stepped up to the plate and were willing to relieve the burden of these increased costs, then perhaps the council would go along with an increase in the school budget of $130,000. This would enable you to keep all your teachers, any maintenance you have planned, and afford you the opportunity to buy some new textbooks,” Hinson read.

Although the councilors indicated that they support education, the letter said, the city’s stagnating economy has had an impact on the budget. “One only has to look in our own back yard to see what the absence of a funded maintenance program can bring in terms of rewards – an abandoned middle school and a high school that’s rumored to need repairs. It has also been suggested that the pupil-teacher ratio is too high and that the use of old textbooks erodes the morale of both the students and the teachers,” the letter said.

On Tuesday, Regina Taylor said she expected that the letter would be addressed at the school committee meeting next week.

“I appreciate that they were willing to work with us and make suggestions to us,” she said. “We all need to give good ideas that we think will help each other out.” But not everyone agreed with Taylor, and some people at the meeting Monday night believed it was too late in the process for the council to ask for such major changes.

Bouchard said the school committee has put together a proposed budget that represents a zero increase over last year. The budget calls for cuts in teachers and books and no money for major maintenance projects at the high and elementary schools. Once again, the school committee, like former school boards, is faced with a choice between retaining educational programs and fixing broken windows.

If approved, Bouchard said, the school budget would be $5,121,591 or $4,500 less than last year. The local share of the budget is expected to be $1,670,939, the same as last year.

Bouchard said the school committee believes it is too late in the year to reopen salary negotiations. “The teachers have been asked to cut some textbooks and some supplies in order to [avoid increases in] this budget, and now we are trying to keep staff morale high. So I think we have it without having to ask the teachers to make this concession,” she said. “Whether we will or not has not been decided yet.”

In maintenance, the superintendent conceded, no money has been included for any major repairs. “We have the general maintenance in each account. We were hoping to have a contingency of $20,000 or $30,000 to do some maintenance, but we don’t,” she said.

After the meeting Monday night, Hinson said that when he presented the council’s letter to the school committee, he was under the impression that the school budget was $177,000 higher than last year. “Using past history, we assumed they were cutting teachers, books and maintenance to make up that $177,000,” he said. “If they are down to level funding, I can only conclude that they cut more of all three of those areas. This is the council’s concern, especially in maintenance because in the long run it’s going to cost us more.”

Asked if the city intends to reopen negotiations with city union employees, Hinson said that was not planned. “We have been able to come in on our budget without hurting the infrastructure,” he said.