The new three year teachers contract appeared on the Brunswick School Department web site this morning. You can find it here.
Based on the salary tables contained in the contract, we have updated our earlier forecast samples that were based on disclosures made to the public, however you might choose to interpret them.
You can find the comparison here.
In the chart, the entries shaded in gray are those that take the contract for the school year just ending and elevate them by the amounts previously announced to the public, adhering to historic contract patterns.
The entries shaded in yellow start from the contract values for the school year just ending, and then apply the figures from the new contract for the three ensuing years.
As you’ll see, for the three cases originally chosen, two make out slightly less better than predicted, while the third makes out better than originally estimated.
Our first look at the contract shows two things. First, the ‘pattern’ seen in prior years from contract to contract has been broken, so it is not really possible to characterize the increases in summary form. Second, this fact, coupled with the actual numbers, still makes the summary that was provided to the School Board for a vote, and provided to the public and the council following the vote, erroneous by any measure we can come up with.
Clearly, step increases are not a flat 2% as was stated. And we can’t find a way so far to come up with the “3.57%, 3.99%, and 2.9%” figures quoted as well. Frankly, we can’t make any sense of that pronouncement in comparison to the actual figures. We just can’t imagine how they came up with it.
Someone else is going to have to explain that to us; we can’t wait to see how they do it so we can improve our understanding of contracts.
Till then, while the specific details have changed a bit, our assertions about false pretenses have not.
Not that it matters. Unless you like banging your head on the nearest available wall.
Oh, and just so you know, there is a special council meeting at 6pm tomorrow night (Thursday, 31 May) in the usual meeting room. This is to adopt the budget for the coming year, and will be your last chance to offer comments. We promise to let you use our soft spot on the wall if you show up.
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