Carve away at the waste first

On New Year’s Eve in the early 1960s, my friends and I were in Boston celebrating events all over town. One of the people I shared the festivities with entered me in a contest and my name was pulled and announced on the microphone. The prize was truly unique.

A block of ice was going to be carved into an eagle, and I won the privilege of carving a fourth of it. I went over to the artisan and asked him, “How in the world am I going to do this?” He handed me tools in front of tens of onlookers and advised, “I’m leaving for half an hour. Just begin taking away everything that is not an eagle!”

 Chipping away the best I could, and to the applause of all, the artist came back and exclaimed: “Wow, great job Frank! We’re on our way.” He then proceeded to fashion whatever little ice was left to make a beautiful eagle, although smaller than the one he planned, I am sure.

Building a proper sized budget for our needed services is much like carving and creating this proud eagle in Boston so many years ago. It’s all a question of how large a block of money you truly need.

The override question will be defeated. The goals of rebuilding our school system will not. The two questions are not and should not be linked in my opinion. Our government is already paralyzed of expressions, friendships developing between board members and administrators, family hiring, and undisclosed protected opportunities.

Let us take the advice of the artist I worked beside and begin not spending anything that is not truly a community expense or activity necessary. Let’s chip away at making our town a smaller, faster and more efficient machine.

A wondrous and loving God created our beautiful children. They all individually have instincts and tendencies. If allowed to have enough room and space they will grow to wondrous development and achievement. They and the teachers, as well as the parents of this town, have not come first during these last few years.

 No teacher or system can foresee a child’s possibilities and further has no right in directing their lives or how they should grow and what should be forced into their minds. Our educational system has turned into a pressure cooker of testing, comparison, and stress on the students in a period of their lives that should be filled with a spirit of adventure upon rising from bed in the morning.

We must decide, after this override question is settled, that in our community, we can compete with a much less salaried administration to enable a respectably paid professional classroom teacher within our budget structure. And we can achieve this, once the mindset of this present administration ends.

It has been a country club to say the least. The skyrocketing of executive pay, the advancement of six-figure service contracts, increasing of legal budgets, unaudited mileage allowances, and more while teachers fight for a small pay raise is evident. It must end.

The fiscal 2008 school budget, without an override, is still $25 million and our children and teachers still cannot be warm, or cool when needed. You will see below why this is not necessary at all.

The present school budget is filled with hundreds of thousands of needless and selfish dollars, which can be easily turned into programs for our children. A new administration can change some of the following items you should know about as we move forward.

The financial gap between the average salary of supervisors, principals, office executives, and teachers’ salaries is now more than 100 percent. There is no principal under $90,000 to $100,000, and most supervisors are in the same category.

As an example of my plight to relieve the parent’s sports fees versus executive choices, I offer the following against an average fee of $250. The superintendent has budgeted an amount of 120 boxes of “white tabs” for $600. He has also requested “Post-Its Assorted” for an amount of $450. Telephone Message pads toll in at $180. Those are just a few, but they total $1,300. This amounts to over 6 parent’s sports fees alone.

Book purchasing must be questioned as some are coming in at $75 each. The department has budgeted for 1,513 books at a cost of $110,542. Freight is $ 715. We can do better. 

In special education, in the area of out of town transportation, there are many line items that state new placement needed, which total approximately $107,000. These are more just-in-case areas. 

A man named Samuel Orth decades ago made the following great statement. “Educational systems must not be an enslaver of memory but rather an emancipator of reasoning.”

We cannot accomplish this good advice in hot or cold classrooms while the trucks come with overpriced books, and money is kept in the vault for contingency tuition or travel, siding with those of Post-Its and white tabs.

Let us pray our new superintendent knows what to do with a new block of ice and bless us with an eagle whose wings will protect our tax dollars and guide them into areas of education and adventure. 

You have two choices on June 19. You can say yes to $3 million of the same. Or you can say no and thus be saying yes to finding all you hope for in the present budgets, the new surplus just announced, and several new amounts approved at Town Meeting and more to come as free cash in October.

Here’s a symbolic pick and hammer, let’s carve this new future together.