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9 Responses to “Dearborn School Video Outlines Projected Deficit”

1. Uncle Jeremy says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 4:19 pm

   Get rid of Gutowski. He and his position has been superfilous, redundant, excessive and counter productive for a long time. Rescind the large increase in pay the Board voted themselves a few years back, put a freeze on any pay increases for employees and a freeze on any step increases in pay. If this does not work reduce pay for superintendent and administrators by 10 percent, all other employees 5 percent. New employees to receive pay on seperate and lower paystep, new employees to receive lower tier higher deductible health care package. Disengage from the practice of funding improvements and increases to sports facilities, fields etc until such time as MEAP scores rise and all students can read and speak english. Disengage from any non mandated Bilingual education attempts. Mandate speaking of English at Fordson and elsewhere whenever possible.

2. Dearbornette says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 5:37 pm

   Uncle Jeremy,

   Excellent plan. It would be nice if this would be implemented, but I am sure all the groups involved would scream bloody murder. We can only hope they would be this fiscally responsible.

3. Donna Hay says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 5:52 pm

   How many people have had this happen to them. Pay cuts, benefit cuts, lost jobs, etc. Let them scream bloody murder. Something has to give and it can’t always be school programs. I worked at Ford for 33 yrs and never paid a dime for my health benefits, now I pay part of the costs. After all those years of free benefits I can’t complain now and neither should they if they are asked to give up some benefits.

4. Michael D. Albano says:
   January 19th, 2009 at 7:09 pm

   As Sharon Dulmage stated in the DPS forum at the Little Cafe, as the auto companies learned and as other school districts have learned, slashing benefit expenses by raising deductibles, raising co-pays of employees, etc. is just an iasue that has to be addressed. As Donna says, everyone else seems to be dealing with it and it’s time the DPS dealt with it and finally did something about it. Taxpayers, many of whom are struggling themselves and dealing with the same issues can no longer afford these type of high expenses. Why should DPS be the exception?

5. Donna says:
   January 29th, 2009 at 10:43 pm

   Michael and Donna,

   I know that it sound like everyone should have to give up something to make the budget and the schools work. Co-pays and payroll contributiions to medical insurance have increased for many people. However, just because it is happening to some does not mean that everone must be punished. Why are the teacher expected to give back and then be punished for what what was a contact benifit that attracted good teachers to our district in the first place. It is kind of a bait and switch. “Come here and work. Great schools, great kids, great bennies. ” Then, once they teachers have been here for years and are getting their retirments in line our attitued becomes different. We, the community, don’t want to keep up our end of the bargin. We want the teacher to give up what we offered them and if they don’t do this easily we are angry.

   This is not the behavior of a community that expects to have a reputation of fair contarct and work relationship with its employee’s. Teachers do not work for a private company that is out to make a profit like Ford, GM or HP. The teachers work for the state and for the community.

   We can balance the budget and provide a great education for our students but knee jerk reactions to solve the problem are not going to work. We need to have long term plans to commit to programs of study, and reduction of duplicate services and community involvement in helping our schools.

   Back in the 1980’s, as a govenment worker myself, my wages were not as high as some of my friends. They were going on weekend trips to Vegas and vacations at Easter break to Cancun. They were buying big houses and fancy cars. One friend who was so happy that her husband “Mike”( not his real name) was doing so well that she quit her job and talked about how great she and Mike were doing and how she did’t think she would ever work again and that I should really think about another line of work or have my husband do something else that would “really provide” for his family. This really “stung” me. Here I was working my butt off for the betterment of the community, making a lot less money, living in not such a fancy house, driving a Ford (not a BMW) and my vacations were trips to Tawas and having people say this to me.
   I might add this was not just one friend but the attitued of the community.

   Well now times have changed. I already paid my debt. When everone else was getting bonus checks up the butt I was getting my stinking 2% a year raise with no bounus check. No corporate sponsered “business’ trips to cool places, no Christmas Parties at the best hotel in town with a room and gifts from the employer. No “little extra” for a job well done. Just my pay and I earned every penny.

   Fast forward to now. I am set to retire with all my benefits, a great pention 75% of my best 3 years and medical and optical and a yearly bonus cost of living check. So what happens and my friend called me yesterday to cry that “Mike” had his commission cut AGAIN!!!!! She was trying to find a job to help with the cost of the household and that everything is just terrible. Then she asked me if I thought maybe I could give her the number to someone who could help her get a governmnet job with bennies like I have. Sorry, I was from the old plan. Now new hires don’t get what I got and there is a hiring freeze.

   Like the teachers I worked for a fraction of the wages private company workers were makeing for years. When times were good I kept my mouth shut and worked my butt off. I am not getting more I am just getting everthing everyone else got before. \\Just like the teachers.

   Sorry, remember the good times you all were having back then. Well now it is time to pay the piper- And the teachers for their dedication and commitment to the students, commmuntiy and instituiton of learning.

   Dig deep into those pockets my friends, nothing is for free.

6. Sean Hannity says:
   January 30th, 2009 at 8:14 am

   Donna (not Donna Hay),

   Let me get this straight. You talk about fair contracts and work relationships with employees, about how teachers do not work for a private company that is out to make a profit, that they work for the state and the community as stated in your post. You also state you work for the government. Government employment is one of the most bloated expenses there are in the nation, even worse than many private companies. Government jobs also give far more security than private jobs. Some government employees pay no social security taxes, yet they receive retirement pay and benefits. Some government employees and high ranking officals end up earning the same income in retirement as they do when they worked. While the private sector in most areas is cutting jobs, the government continues to maintain current positions and in many cases create more positions. My heart hardly bleeds for government employees.

   Yes, teachers work for the state and more so the community and not private businesses out to make a profit. But customers of private businesses have the choice to not buy their product. Taxpayers in our community do not have the choice to not buy the product unless they move out, which many are doing due to the poor state of our Dearborn schools. Further more, many desirable, prospective residents are now not moving into Dearborn as they used to in the past due to our poorly performing public schools. Only 3 schools achieved respectable MEAP and MME scores, Dearborn High School, OL Smith Middle School and Duvall Elementary. Many were near the bottom of the middle rankings statewide and even more were in the bottom period.

   Our teachers and administrators might not be a public company, but they are held accountable to the people they are supposed to serve, the taxpayers who dole out the funding in taxes and the students and neither is very happy with the results for the past 25 or more years. Teachers in Dearborn are among the highest paid in the state and nation. They are also receiving benefits at a cost to taxpayers that are much higher than most Michigan cities and many other states cities. These same taxpayers are losing jobs, benefits and the lucky ones are still being forced to pay more out of pocket expense for their benefits and also having their pay cut. I see nothing that should allow Dearborn teachers to be the exception to the rule when most of their peers in other communities have far less generous perks.

   Teacher unions for the past few decades have headed down simliar paths as the auto unions, with excessive benefits, only or mainly seniority counting towards advancement and pay raises, when it should be based primarily upon performance. The cost to the taxpayer for schools and teachers keeps going up, while the average taxpayers income and benefits goes down. The end result of teachers unions and other factors in Dearborn is that we now have uneducated kids with most schools rated among the worst in the state, when at one time Dearborn Public Schools were rated near the top. Dearborn schools class sizes today are 1/2 to 2/3 the size they used to be yet kids are still not learning. But of course let’s keep Dearborn teachers benefits high -Duh!

   Dearborn teachers will just have to get used to the fact that times are tough all over and suffer with the rest. They’ll have to just get used to having benefits similar to other school districts teachers rather than ‘Rolls Royce’ benefits when the taxpayers they represent are now lucky to receive ‘Pinto’ benefits, if any benefits. Dearborn teachers along with administators will have to learn how to again make sure Dearborn kids are learning much better than what end result we’ve seen the last 25 plus years. Dearborn teachers will have to learn how to quit making so many demands on the school system so it doesn’t keep operating with deficits as it has the past 8 years. Dearborn’s teacher unions will have to restructure their priorities to making qualifications and performance the main factor in increased wages and benefits.

   I’m not only blaming teachers and the others here. Our school board needs to get up off their fat duffs, quit catering to special interests that further divide our community and again start mandating kids speak or learn English quickly, to be American first and teach them the 3 R’s as they did long ago which worked.

   Every employee, whether public or private usually signs a work contract or application. It is not bait and switch when a community or business is having financial difficulties when benefits or pay is cut. It is simply the reality of doing business, because even though you say schools are public institutions, they are still a business running a budget. Consider yourself lucky that you won’t have to make the sacrifices that newer employees will with pay and benefit cuts, or maybe no job at all.

   Maybe when the economy picks up again, surely if and when DPS is again top rated and not cutting budgets 8 years in a row, then and only then should DPS consider keeping or reinstating higher benefits for our teachers than most other communities. In the meantime, DPS has to cut everything they can out of the budget, especially their teacher benefit expenses. Get used to it – no more paying the piper!

7. Michael D. Albano says:
   January 30th, 2009 at 8:58 am

   One has to admire the passion and concern the 2nd Donna has about teachers and I can respect that.

   But I do have to say that I agree with Sean Hannity’s well stated case entirely and could probably add even more to it justifying why DPS teachers need to have their benefits more in line with their peers in other schools. But I’ll leave the arguments for or against it to others.

8. Donna Hay says:
   January 30th, 2009 at 10:25 am

   Donna

   Lets say I was a parent and out of work with my only income being unemployment or maybe I had taken a cut in salary or lost benefits. Now you come along and tell me the teacher teaching my child should not have to take a cut in pay or lose benefits because he/she signed a contract. Well maybe I had worked at one of the big three, belonged to the UAW and signed a contract, do you think that I am going to agree with you that the teacher should be not ‘punished’. What makes the teacher so special? There are many teachers that are very dedicated to their jobs and love the BENEFIT they get from knowing that they helped a child that was having a difficult time.

   I do admire what teachers do but they are not exempt from what is happening with this economy and they have to make the same sacrifices as thousands of other people are doing right now.

9. Louie D says:
   January 30th, 2009 at 10:47 am

   Right on Donna, Mike and Sean.