These are my opinions only, and not the opinions of the
Pendleton County School Board or any other individual board members.
The decisions we make as a board have a ripple effect at the
state level. My first concern is the
impact that our decision will have on the state’s teacher retirement fund. Boosting the superintendent’s pay to maximize
monthly pension benefits would be a very nice gesture to our
Superintendent. This gesture, however, comes
with a price. The teacher’s retirement
fund is already underfunded. If all 176
Kentucky school districts did the same gesture, it would certainly accelerate
the death (insolvency) of the Kentucky Teacher’s Retirement System Fund.
In my opinion, our Superintendent is already well
compensated. The total cost of his pay
and benefit package of this new contract will make it a “statistical outlier”
relative to the Superintendent’s peer group in comparable districts.
My number one priority as a board member is fiscal
responsibility while being fair to all employee groups in the district. An analogy best explains my point here.
I have three sons. As a mother, it is extremely important that I
treat each of them fairly. If I didn’t,
it would create family conflict and ultimately, they would not trust me. This would hold true if I were constantly
buying things for myself while my boys got nothing. I think of the school district as a
family. When teachers see the quality of
their working conditions eroded (student-teacher ratio, etc.), it leads to a
lack of trust. This is especially true
when other members of the family have not learned to get by with less as
well. It also does not set well when a
mother is wearing diamonds and a fur coat, while her children go to school in
jeans with holes in them and not wearing a coat at all. It isn’t that I don’t want the “mother” to
have nice things; I just want her to balance her needs against the needs of the
“family” budget.
If
you wish to contact me to discuss this or any other issue, please contact me at
859-472-2799.
