Post by Site Admin on Sept 17, 2009 10:51:56 GMT -5
Northwest Herald
D-154 raises an outrage
The median family income in Marengo in 1999 was $57,209, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. That’s family income, as in the combined wages of everyone earning a paycheck in a household. The median income of an individual administrator in Marengo School District 154 is about $92,500. To be fair, that’s in 2009 dollars. And it’s also after raises kick in this school year that range from 4 percent to 9.4 percent.
Ignoring the worst recession since the Great Depression, the fact that unemployment in McHenry County is above 10 percent and that most wage earners in the district have seen their income shrink or remain stagnant over the past year, the District 154 school board decided over the summer to be frivolous with taxpayer money.
Using the tired “trying-to-be-more-competitive” excuse, the board sold out its constituents by approving such outrageous increases.
The raises, in short, are unconscionable.
District 154 is a single-school district that serves fewer than 1,000 students. It now employs five administrators making more than $90,000 annually and a sixth who quickly is approaching that figure ($86,729).
All of this in the name of being competitive with neighboring districts, most of whom are much larger.
The spending problem, of course, is not just at District 154. (Although Marengo District 165, after a failed referendum attempt, has frozen salaries.) Many in public education in this state refuse to get it. School boards don’t get it. School administrators don’t get it. Teachers’ unions don’t get it.
This isn’t monopoly money being played with. It’s the hard-earned money of families who are struggling just to pay their mortgages.
D-154 raises an outrage
The median family income in Marengo in 1999 was $57,209, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. That’s family income, as in the combined wages of everyone earning a paycheck in a household. The median income of an individual administrator in Marengo School District 154 is about $92,500. To be fair, that’s in 2009 dollars. And it’s also after raises kick in this school year that range from 4 percent to 9.4 percent.
Ignoring the worst recession since the Great Depression, the fact that unemployment in McHenry County is above 10 percent and that most wage earners in the district have seen their income shrink or remain stagnant over the past year, the District 154 school board decided over the summer to be frivolous with taxpayer money.
Using the tired “trying-to-be-more-competitive” excuse, the board sold out its constituents by approving such outrageous increases.
The raises, in short, are unconscionable.
District 154 is a single-school district that serves fewer than 1,000 students. It now employs five administrators making more than $90,000 annually and a sixth who quickly is approaching that figure ($86,729).
All of this in the name of being competitive with neighboring districts, most of whom are much larger.
The spending problem, of course, is not just at District 154. (Although Marengo District 165, after a failed referendum attempt, has frozen salaries.) Many in public education in this state refuse to get it. School boards don’t get it. School administrators don’t get it. Teachers’ unions don’t get it.
This isn’t monopoly money being played with. It’s the hard-earned money of families who are struggling just to pay their mortgages.