Tuesday 5/25 BOE meeting

At which they will discuss the budget. There is a public comment section--go if you want to be heard! Click for the agenda.

Next meeting

If you want to know what's going on with the new-and-not-terribly-improved BOE budget, they may have info at their 5/25 meeting (Tuesday night, 7:30, library @ LMHS). Then again, they may not.

IT PASSED!!!

The town budget passed by 200ish votes. In the exit questions, more people thought the BOE budget was too high, so we still wait to see how that plays out at the schools.

Here are the details on the town's website.

Thanks to all who voted, helped, petitioned, Face-Booked, talked to friends, called people, harassed people, spoke up at the town meeting, sat still and thought good thoughts, or any other helpful things.

Onward!

Volunteers Needed!

Volunteers are needed to remind voters of the referendum. If you would like to help voters get to the polls please let us know!





We do NOT call to influence the vote, just to remind about the date!

Some more thoughts about those "greedy" teachers

1. Several people suggested teachers should be "thinking of the kids" instead of themselves. They don't seem to realize that's what teachers DO; they think of the kids. A certain segment of people in town think programs and teaching can happen effectively "without" teachers. Programs and teaching doesn't happen in a public school without certified teachers.

2. One man suggested the town look into teacher "pensions" for some kind of give-back. If one checks p. 32 in the yellow booklet of the Lebanon Annual Report for 08-09 they will see that the Town doesn't put anything into teacher retirement plans. Teachers money is not "matched" and many teachers have lost their "nest egg" in the recession too.

3. Most people don't realize that the State of CT dipped into teacher pension funds and reallocated them to use a few years ago during "lean times" and had to be challenged (along with other CT civil servants like police) to get that issue addressed, over time.

4. Most people don't realize teachers no longer buy into Social Security as they used to.

5. Many older teachers are facing continual reductions to whatever S.S. benefits they might have accrued before 2 laws came into effect that penalize teachers. So, teachers who had worked during the summer or part-time to make ends meet, or in a different profession previous to entering the teaching profession, have been losing S.S. points each year. Some teachers have already been bumped below the 40 points they'd earned before these laws.

VOTE YES ON MAY 11th.

Town Meeting or Teacher Bashing?

And a lovely town meeting it was. But I'll try to stick to the facts.

1) The teachers' union agreed to two furlough days for next year.
2) Before the furlough is taken into account, the average teacher raise was 4.75%. And that number was thrown around a LOT.
3) Starting salary in Lebanon is under $30,000 (just so we see what we're talking about here--they're not rolling in money!)
4) People are VERY upset that the teachers are getting a raise at all.
5) To some people, the whole reason we're in a budget crisis at all is because of Those Darned Greedy Teachers.
6) There goes my objectivity.

Beyond that, the group of moms (and one dad) who spoke out at the public hearing in April were dubbed the CML: the Concerned Mothers of Lebanon. Great! Let's DO something, CMLs! I think that, even though we'd like to see a bigger budget (really really like to see it!), we need to vote YES at the referendum vote on May 11th to protect the money we did manage to secure. One person tried to make a motion that the town budget be reduced by $300,000 (to be subtracted from the BOE budget, naturally), but that wasn't legal. Whew! We need to do some serious campaigning to get this vote through, I think. If you want to help, let me know. We have to get out the vote on May 11th.

Do you have more to add? Got clarifications or corrections? Send them on! If you want them to get posted, just leave me a comment and I'll make a new post. The point of this was to share info. So share! Pass it on.