When I spoke at the board meeting last Tuesday I spoke specifically about defined benefit plans.
For those that don't know, a defined benefit plan is a retirement plan where the employer (in this case the school district) promises the employee a certain amount per year in their retirement. No matter how much money is initially contributed and no matter how well or how poorly the investments do over time, the amount the employee gets in retirement does not change, and the employer is responsible for paying it. These are the kind of plans that we have in the district.
The alternative is a defined contribution plan - these are often referred to in the private sector as a 401(k). In these plans, the amount that goes in up front is known, but exactly how much the employee gets in retirement is not known. As anyone with a 401(k) knows, how much they ultimately have at retirement depends on many things (mostly investment returns of the funds they invest in), and if they don't have enough, it is not their employer's problem.
While the private sector in this country has virtually all abandoned defined benefit (and many companies along the way have been decimated by them), in the public sector DB is very much still the norm, including in our district. The obvious problem is that it is hard for the district to know how much it is going to need in the coming years. Among other things, you have to make assumptions about how long people are going to live (aka longevity) as well as what the investment returns are going to be. Often, for political expediency of otherwise, people make unrealistic assumptions about the future. For instance, I believe that NYS assumes an 8% annual return on the district's assets to cover these pensions (I am not sure about this but I believe it to be true). As we all know, financial markets have been and continue to be very volatile, and assuming an 8% consistent annual return can be very risky.
So, with this backdrop, I was urging the board to consider engaging with the district's employees as soon as possible, to find other mutually agreeable alternatives to these very risky DB plans. The key part here is that I believe that under the current New York State laws, the only way to do this is to do it in a mutually agreeable way. I am not suggesting that we take away teacher's pensions against their will.
So what am I suggesting? Let me lay it out, bearing in mind that this is meant to be a concept to explore, not a fully vetted plan that is ready to be implemented:
1. All benefits that have been earned to date be frozen. Whatever an employee has today, they will still get in retirement. It would be unfair if we were to try to take away something that was already promised.
2. Offer all current employees who are eligible for a DB plan a choice - they can either keep what they currently have today in place and continue accruing their defined pension benefits, or they can switch over to a higher current cash compensation in return for forgoing any future defined benefit accruals. If they were to switch they would be eligible for a 403(b) defined contribution account (I am not an expert on this but I believe that this is the public school teachers equivalent to a 401(k)).
I think that the key word to focus on here is choice. No one will be forced in to one plan or the other, but will be given a choice. Anyone who knows anything about option theory knows that having a choice, versus not having one, can only add value and can never detract from value. I have been told by some that the various unions in PW will not allow their constituents to have such a choice, but I cannot believe that to be true. Denying someone this option would clearly be against the best interests of the employees.
Over time the two compensation levels will become well known and well understood, and different employees will choose the one that is appropriate for their specific circumstances. Obviously everyone's financial situations are different and what will be right for some will of course not necessarily be right for others. Furthermore, over time, we may be able to develop other variations around these to give employees even more choices.
I fully appreciate that putting this in to place would cost more up front and would therefore require more current outlays and therefore more current taxes. I fear that this fact will turn-off many of the people who think that the district already spends too much. I would urge those people to consider though that this upfront investment, if managed correctly, will almost certainly lead to a more predictable and manageable future for the district. Of the two wild cards that are sinking many school districts because of the unknown future costs (pensions and healthcare) we will be putting a huge dent in one of them.
I would love to hear other's opinions on this.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Raise the Roof Bond for Weber
I called Bob Ryan who is the person on the board who was most vocal about this topic last year and he gave me the following information:
Roof on Weber is slate, and is the original roof from when Weber was built in 1910.
Ten years ago engineering consultants gave a report that the roof needed to be replaced in 2 years.
5 years ago an engineering consulting firm stated it needs to replaced immediately.
So we still have the roof, and spend about 100k/yr right now, on maintenance but it still needs to be replaced.
Estimates came in from approx $2.7mm to $3.3mm or more to replace the roof depending on materials...but Bob and the board has no official preference on what materials to use.
this is process:
BOE decides whether or not we want to fix the roof.
if yes, BOE figures out how to pay for it...If BOE decides to float a bond, it is presented to people for a vote.
If voted YES, more detailed estimates are sought, type of roof materials details are decided and bids are solicited. Roof gets fixed.
right now we are at the point of the process where it think the BOE is deciding or maybe has decided that we want to fix the roof.
That's what's going on best i can tell.
Bob Ryan is happy to answer any questions or address any factual mistakes written here from my butchering of our conversation.
Anyone familiar with StudentsFirst?
What do you think about this?
http://www.studentsfirst.org/pages/take-action
WSJ story about Michelle Rhee and Washington D.C. Schools
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303362404575580221511231074.html?KEYWORDS=Michelle+Rhee
http://www.studentsfirst.org/pages/take-action
WSJ story about Michelle Rhee and Washington D.C. Schools
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303362404575580221511231074.html?KEYWORDS=Michelle+Rhee
Friday, December 9, 2011
Tenure and a reply to one of the questions from Tuesday
2. Tenure - what are the rules for tenure and our requirement to offer it. Also, what legal rights do we have in the first 3 years to terminate staff and simply rehire from scratch. Taken to the extreme, over a 15 to 20 year period could you arrive at a district with no tenured teachers.
The BOE is not required to accept the recomendation of the Superintendent of a teacher for tenure. A teacher can be dismssed from employment within the three year probationary period without any formal reason. However, it is never advisable to do so without docmentation of poor performance. A teacher is usally offered the opportunity to resign in lieu of termination. There are specfic timelines that must be followed if teachers were to be terminated and they can ask for the reasons. Most importantly, though, from a legal prospective, similar attempts to circumvent the tenure laws have been struck down by the courts as unlawful. Therefore, you would not be able to run a district without any tenured teachers.
From an educational perspective, top teachers would not want to work in Port Washington when they can get job protection elsewhere. Further, the District would have no experienced teachers who are in the classroom at the height of their skill base and professional development. There would also be no experienced teachers to mentor new teachers. The District would be continually firing, hiring and training teachers in order to comply with the SED mandates on assessments and evaluations. A constant turnover of teachers could very easily result in a significant decline is student achievement. This is neither an effective or efficient managerial approach to maintaining a high performing school district.
Thanks
Re-cap of 12/13/2011 BOE Meeting
Re-cap of 12/13/2011 BOE Meeting at Schreiber 8pm
Gentlemen, and Ladies,
This is a bigger email list than before and I will work with different lists since some topics have become more sensitive. I hope everyone who came to the meeting last night got a glimpse of how things are run. It is what it is; it's not perfect. It can be extremely frustrating and mind-numbing at the same time. I hope you would admit It is reasonably transparent, though.
I also am happy for you since everyone was pretty much up to speed with most of the issues and you were able to get the most out of the meeting, even if that may not have been much.
I had flashbacks from my painful year of attending these meeting last year and concluded not only is it probably impossible to round up a crew of smart, interested, professionals like yourselves for every one of these meetings, it is also very inefficient.
I would propose we figure out at least one or two guys who would be willing to commit to one or two meetings and write up the basic detail for the rest of us. Other guys in the group can rotate in or out. I have decided that i will attend every meeting that i can, but i don't want to be responsible for/would like some help with the work.
You saw also that the BOE meetings are also basically 2 one-sided conversations, where the community speaks, and then the board speaks but it is not a forum where conversations actually take place. Community questions don't necessarily get answered on the spot (or sometimes ever.) The board i think feels that wide open conversations with the public is unmanageable for a meeting of that size. That being said the board as representatives of the public wants to answer every question reasonably possible from all stakeholders, so Karen Sloan said she would try to come up with a way to answer publicly asked questions.
Darren K. mentioned that a public question made by one person really should have a public answer since others in the community might have asked the same question but did not since it was already asked. So instead of personal email responses to individual questions, a web based reply that the public could tune into will be looked into.
Any thoughts on how to execute this are welcomed.
Anyway it is too easy to get bogged down in stuff like this so here's the meat.
- Some people spoke against a budget that goes over the over 2% property tax cap.
- Some spoke for clarity and transparency and better estimates on how much it costs to fix Weber roof.
- Some spoke to eliminating defined benefit plans as the major issue, over time, and ideally in a mutually agreeable way.
- Some advocated teacher association voluntary givebacks to save programs that will be cut.
I was pleasantly surprised that others outside our group were happy to see us talk, and agreed with our thoughts on high taxes and some of the other issues we brought up. And one important note was that NO ONE publicly spoke in disagreement to anything we said.
Please note future meetings will be heart-wrenching as community members and teachers/librarians/guidance counselors/coaches beg for their individual programs and or jobs not to be cut. Look at half-day kindergarten, reduction is sports teams/clubs/coaches/
moderators,
reduction in PEP services....i only mentioned these because they were on
the table last year, or they have been specifically mentioned this
year, of course keeping in mind that all thinks are always on the table.
In the end things will get cut. Or you will pay higher taxes. Or teachers will give back a little. Or the administration will cut waste, overhead, or something we can live without. It is a zero sum game and like they said it doesn't look like a bag of money is showing up on the school steps any time soon.
Keep in mind this is only the board level and there is a limited amount that can be accomplished here. You may be able to keep your taxes a little lower, get a giveback from the teachers and maybe save a program or two. Also there are medium term advantages to speaking your mind at board meetings that we can calk about. However, the more challenging changes will occur at a higher state level, and my next email, after the one about the roof, will be excellent regarding the state level next steps.
Take care and talk soon.
still working on the blog, make a comment....especially if you disagree.
http://pwschools.blogspot.com/
Link to 12/13/2011 agenda:
http://www.portnet.k12.ny.us/cms/lib6/NY01001023/Centricity/ModuleInstance/2077/a1112-121311p.pdf
Gentlemen, and Ladies,
This is a bigger email list than before and I will work with different lists since some topics have become more sensitive. I hope everyone who came to the meeting last night got a glimpse of how things are run. It is what it is; it's not perfect. It can be extremely frustrating and mind-numbing at the same time. I hope you would admit It is reasonably transparent, though.
I also am happy for you since everyone was pretty much up to speed with most of the issues and you were able to get the most out of the meeting, even if that may not have been much.
I had flashbacks from my painful year of attending these meeting last year and concluded not only is it probably impossible to round up a crew of smart, interested, professionals like yourselves for every one of these meetings, it is also very inefficient.
I would propose we figure out at least one or two guys who would be willing to commit to one or two meetings and write up the basic detail for the rest of us. Other guys in the group can rotate in or out. I have decided that i will attend every meeting that i can, but i don't want to be responsible for/would like some help with the work.
You saw also that the BOE meetings are also basically 2 one-sided conversations, where the community speaks, and then the board speaks but it is not a forum where conversations actually take place. Community questions don't necessarily get answered on the spot (or sometimes ever.) The board i think feels that wide open conversations with the public is unmanageable for a meeting of that size. That being said the board as representatives of the public wants to answer every question reasonably possible from all stakeholders, so Karen Sloan said she would try to come up with a way to answer publicly asked questions.
Darren K. mentioned that a public question made by one person really should have a public answer since others in the community might have asked the same question but did not since it was already asked. So instead of personal email responses to individual questions, a web based reply that the public could tune into will be looked into.
Any thoughts on how to execute this are welcomed.
Anyway it is too easy to get bogged down in stuff like this so here's the meat.
- Some people spoke against a budget that goes over the over 2% property tax cap.
- Some spoke for clarity and transparency and better estimates on how much it costs to fix Weber roof.
- Some spoke to eliminating defined benefit plans as the major issue, over time, and ideally in a mutually agreeable way.
- Some advocated teacher association voluntary givebacks to save programs that will be cut.
I was pleasantly surprised that others outside our group were happy to see us talk, and agreed with our thoughts on high taxes and some of the other issues we brought up. And one important note was that NO ONE publicly spoke in disagreement to anything we said.
Please note future meetings will be heart-wrenching as community members and teachers/librarians/guidance counselors/coaches beg for their individual programs and or jobs not to be cut. Look at half-day kindergarten, reduction is sports teams/clubs/coaches/
In the end things will get cut. Or you will pay higher taxes. Or teachers will give back a little. Or the administration will cut waste, overhead, or something we can live without. It is a zero sum game and like they said it doesn't look like a bag of money is showing up on the school steps any time soon.
Keep in mind this is only the board level and there is a limited amount that can be accomplished here. You may be able to keep your taxes a little lower, get a giveback from the teachers and maybe save a program or two. Also there are medium term advantages to speaking your mind at board meetings that we can calk about. However, the more challenging changes will occur at a higher state level, and my next email, after the one about the roof, will be excellent regarding the state level next steps.
Take care and talk soon.
still working on the blog, make a comment....especially if you disagree.
http://pwschools.blogspot.com/
Link to 12/13/2011 agenda:
http://www.portnet.k12.ny.us/
How a Board Meeting Works
Just to keep it simple, the Board accepts comments from the community at the beginning of the meeting.
If you want to speak you get in line in one of the aisles behind the podium with a microphone.
Each person gets a 3 minute time limit to speak.
General etiquette is (from what I have seen) :
State your name at the beginning of your statement.
Don't mention or address anyone by name.
Try to be polite.
Sometime people in the audience express agreement.
Next, there is a presentation from one of the schools or one of the school programs that the board oversees.
There is discussion, and some other board business.
At the end of the meeting they open the microphone up to the community again, where each person is again allotted 3 minutes to speak.
Even if you have already spoken at the beginning of the meeting, you are allowed to speak again.
Cheers and good luck!
If you want to speak you get in line in one of the aisles behind the podium with a microphone.
Each person gets a 3 minute time limit to speak.
General etiquette is (from what I have seen) :
State your name at the beginning of your statement.
Don't mention or address anyone by name.
Try to be polite.
Sometime people in the audience express agreement.
Next, there is a presentation from one of the schools or one of the school programs that the board oversees.
There is discussion, and some other board business.
At the end of the meeting they open the microphone up to the community again, where each person is again allotted 3 minutes to speak.
Even if you have already spoken at the beginning of the meeting, you are allowed to speak again.
Cheers and good luck!
Should teachers be asked if they would voluntarily give back?
Last Year 2010-2011, teachers were publicly asked by the Administration to "voluntarily give back" $1,500 of a total compensation increase of $4,500. This is awkward because teachers are entitled to their increase by contract. Nevertheless in light of our difficult times the question was put forth. If this had been done, the money would have been used to save librarians and guidance counselors.
A Deal was not struck, and the cuts went through.
More cuts lie ahead for the town this year.
Should the same request to the teachers' association be made again?
A Deal was not struck, and the cuts went through.
More cuts lie ahead for the town this year.
Should the same request to the teachers' association be made again?
Will 60% of you vote for a budget greater than Cuomo's 2% Tax Cap
Even though NYS passed a 2% tax cap on property taxes this year, a town can pass a budget that calls for an increase in excess of that, if it passes with a supermajority of the votes of 60%.
If you want no cuts, you can just raise taxes to pay for everything.
Should the board of education present a budget with >2% tax increase to you?
If you want no cuts, you can just raise taxes to pay for everything.
Should the board of education present a budget with >2% tax increase to you?
1/10/12 Planned Attendees BOE Meeting Tuesday
People planning on attending the Tuesday, January 10pm BOE at Schrieber.
There will be a Presentation on Middle School Program
Vernon McDermott
Joel Robinson
Phil Sivin
There will be a Presentation on Middle School Program
Vernon McDermott
Joel Robinson
Phil Sivin
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Port Washington School District Interest Group Blog
This Blog is born from a group of 25 concerned fathers in the school system who got together Tuesday 12/9/2011. We got together to try and better understand how our school system works so that, maybe, we could help stop the unsustainable increase in taxes, combined with deepening cuts in our kids' educational programs.
After the meeting I received over 180 emails in 2 days in a frenzy of questions, ideas and initiatives so here we are with a blog. The short term goal is to educate each other so that we can identify the real issues facing our educational system, and to shed light on the things that are egregiously wasteful, or unreasonable, or just bad.
There is a Board of Education Meeting at Schreiber High school on Tuesday, 12/13/2011 at 8:00PM. All are encouraged to attend that meeting and to use this website as a tool for accumulating knowledge so that you can try to make a difference, or so that at least you can know what's going on if you so desire.
After the meeting I received over 180 emails in 2 days in a frenzy of questions, ideas and initiatives so here we are with a blog. The short term goal is to educate each other so that we can identify the real issues facing our educational system, and to shed light on the things that are egregiously wasteful, or unreasonable, or just bad.
There is a Board of Education Meeting at Schreiber High school on Tuesday, 12/13/2011 at 8:00PM. All are encouraged to attend that meeting and to use this website as a tool for accumulating knowledge so that you can try to make a difference, or so that at least you can know what's going on if you so desire.
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