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Georgetown News
Georgetown Selectman Lonnie Brennan
(05/07/07)


April vacation found sunshine and warm and friendly storybook and film favorites including Belle, Winnie the Pooh, Aladdin, Jasmine, Mickey, Minney, and host of magic spender for Georgetown musicians.

The Georgetown High School Marching Band marched down Main Street. Main Street in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida, that is! Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, MGM Studios, and EPCOT! An incredible trip attended by approximately 111 marchers and many, many Georgetown families.

A photo of the Magic Kingdom parade is shown on this page. What a time! The students stayed at Disney’s All Star Music Resort. Highlights of the trip include watching the show Fantasmic, days of rides and shops and pool parties and arcade games, boat rides, water and monorail shuttles, Space Mountain roller-coaster in the stars, a haunted house, president’s hall, thunder mountain, pirate ride, nighttime Spectromagic parades, and, of course, receiving a banner for display at the school from Walt Disney World!

Friendships, and memories for a lifetime as the band makes it trip to Disney just once every four years.

May Preview: Budgets/Overrides/Surplus. Oh My?

Town Meeting has yet to occur as this column goes to press. However, if the past is any indication of the future, hours of guilt trips and arguments, and passionate, emotional pleas will be followed by a series of votes approving nearly every warrant article that separates more money from your family to feed the insatiable government structure.

The beautiful people in the beautiful homes with the beautiful salaries and finances will again try to tell those less able to pay that everyone should work together as one, as a team, and chip in more money. After all, it’s for a good cause.

As many who read this column have noted, I ask a lot of questions and often it appears as though even after asking a question and getting an answer, much confusion appears to remain.

So, here are some statistic charts to consider, of some information that apparently was not well known: for example, the school teachers contract signed 1.5 years ago has come home to roost. In a tough financial climate, School Committee chair George Moker led the negotiations which gave a reported 3.5% pay raise to the teachers for next year, but, as the daily papers have now reported extensively, that 3.5% increase was applied BEFORE step and column increases and bonuses. The result, of 140 teachers we checked out on the official listings (not including those changing hours or positions), less than 1/3 will receive that 3.5% increase. Yup, approximately 60% of the teachers will get raises between 6-11%. Meanwhile, non-teacher salaries, including those for aides, janitors, and elsewhere in town, our highway department workers, tax collector, treasurer, assessor’s clerk, and many others will get one-half to one-third the increase the teachers will receive.

Georgetown Public Schools Teacher Salaries, $ percent increase and percent of teachers receiving that increase

 And, as also picked up by the daily press, after nearly a month of my prodding and asking questions and trying to get straight answers, it has been acknowledged that the contract was signed without any checks and balances as required by Mass. General Law, Ch. 150E; the contract was negotiated and signed illegally.

Does it matter? Perhaps not. Once the deed is done, there might be no turning back, but the important thing to understand is why it happened and what we can do to prevent it in the future.

When alerted to this error, Town Administrator Steve Delaney said “no,” he didn’t know about the law, and then that it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. School Committee Chair George Moker said there was an oversight, and sent a letter of apology to the selectman, but also let us know that teachers are underpaid anyway. He considers an 11% pay raise a good start. OK, I agree that teachers in the ideal world would be paid as much as Red Sox baseball players, but that’s not the real world, and neither was the approval of such raises in the manner in which it was done. (By way of full disclosure, my sister is a teacher in the school system.)
As the schools/town go forward with an override request for approximately $1,061,000, we’ve printed a chart below that shows how the pie is going to be divided: a lot of money for the schools, a little money for everyone else. The proponents say it’s all critical. Vote however you care to vote.  

Override: Who gets what % of the pie:








Lonnie Brennan is a selectman in Georgetown. You can email him at lonnie@thechocolatecellar.com.

 *Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The MAY 2007 Edition of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly Publication.
All Contents (C) 2007
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