Submitted by: Coolwater
Yesterday in the Post Register, there’s an article titled “Polite Protest” in which St. Anthony students protest a reduction in pay for their teachers. It read in part:
Without songs, speeches or anger, South Fremont students demonstrated in support of their teachers and administrators.
“This wasn’t going to be about marching or carrying signs,” junior Brittany Bowen said. “It’s about letting people, specifically those on the school board, know we care.”
Teachers and administrators at the school are facing proposed pay reductions as district officials attempt to balance budgets in the face of declining state subsidies.
Bowen and several of her classmates decided they don’t want economies to begin with or include teacher pay.
“Pay cuts will do nothing but chase our best teachers to other districts,” Bowen said. “When you see the schools lower themselves, the community usually does the same thing. We don’t want that to happen.”
I agree that cutting teachers pay is the last thing to do. While some are quick to point out that teachers pay of $30,000.00 comes with 3 months vacation during the summer, where teachers can pick up additional pay – keeping good teachers in our districts, and in Idaho is directly related to how much we pay our teachers. If you could make an additional $4,000-$5,000 per year doing the same thing for another company, wouldn’t you be tempted to explore?
The truth is, we already have teachers leaving the state due to the pay reduction for southeast Idaho. And the pay is already on the low side for the country.
If you’re in charge of the state, and you have less money than before, where do you cut costs? Nobody seems to want to cut anywhere. But you have to look at it like your own household. If you have two parents working in the household and one looses their job, you have to cut somewhere. What goes and what stays? That’s what our state leaders are facing. And to be fair to them, I have to believe it’s a hard decisions.
But nobody seems to want to cut anywhere, or at least, wherever you would propose to cut there’s someone ready to cry “foul!”. Take a look at welfare, Medicare, fire departments, police, etc. just try and suggest reducing in any of those areas, and you’ll feel the wrath. Just take a look at the controversy over Social Security benefits, which some say is bound to be bankrupt in the near future anyway – a real sore spot for people approaching old age. Everyone agrees we need to cut to balance the budgets, but when it comes time for a hand out – everyone seems to have their hand – out…
Road upkeep, parks and recreation, etc, are all important, but do we need to keep them at the level they have been? The local Idaho Falls Zoo, do we overspend there? Is it time to cut back?
What about the greenbelt? It’s wonderful for a Sunday afternoon stroll, but do we need to maintain it like we do or is it time to cut back?
For me, one of the last places I’d cut is Teacher’s Salaries. If you were in charge and could cut back on where money is spent, where would it be?
Popularity: 8%
Related posts:
- Teacher’s Union President, Peggy Christensen, Wants District 93 to Stop Rewarding Teachers.
- VOTE “NO” On The New School Bond! INSTEAD, Merge The Two Local School Districts Into One!!!
- Open Mike for Local Government Workers August 2007
- Smaller Government with a Unicameral Idaho Legislature
- Should states have the right to determine their own budgets?
Gato got runned over by Marcus many moons ago. Be ye daft, 2486? 
Let's have a new poll, alright, Joe?
:@:)
Loading ...
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
For Idaho Falls we need to stop building parks. Except for when there is a special event do you ever see any of our parks at even 25% capacity? Half the time the smaller parks are completely empty and not being used. Yet we are constantly hearing from our city leaders about the need for more parks, more greenbelt, etc. Right now they want to make a park where Memorial drive currently sits, make a park near Sunnyside and the river, expand the greenbelt, and so on. Why? If our current parks aren’t being used why do we need more? In good economic times this would be okay but not during budget crimping times.
The city should also start outsourcing the work done on the city fleet of vehicles. The city run garage is a black hole that sucks out huge amounts of money from other departments budgets in order to stay afloat. It costs three to four times as much for a city vehicle to get basic maintenance at the city garage as it would in the private sector which means that individual departments have that much less money to spend within their department as they have to subsidize the garage. In real terms this means less police, less firefighters, less training, worse equipment, etc, etc.
while I agree that some areas of the city do need parks that don’t have them currently I don’t think we need to be spending as much as we are on the greenbelt or the expansion of it.
I think the zoo budget is fine due to the fact that our zoo works very hard to raise funds on it’s own. And in my opinion it is a very small zoo for the size of our city.
I think that there are many areas where the city could spend a little more now to save money in the long run. Such as getting real snowplows and not “farming” the snow out of the middle of the street. If we allowed more room on the edges of the roads there would be a place to simples push the snow to the side and get on to other things, spending significaly less in wages for employees that do snow removal and also having FAR LESS cost to road repair because of the ablility to clear the roads faster and therefore having less ice buildup, therefore less potholes etc.
I really wish our city would look at some of the bigger cities in this part of the US and follow their examples as far as money saving activities go.
I wish our city would do a better job at street repair instead of these lame patch jobs you see going on all over the city. If they’d spend a little more money and repair or re-pave the roads correctly the first time, they wouldn’t have to re-patch the same sections of road each spring and summer.
Don’t cut the pay — cut the staff of teachers, police, fire, city, county, state, federal, international workers. There really isn’t anything left in this country that is not overstaffed. There really is no need for anything that is paid for from the taxpayer level that needs to be staffed at present levels. You’ve been duped into thinking that we need this many people for this and that at the local, state and federal levels.
State sales tax, state income tax, federal income tax, Social Security tax, Medicare tax, fuel tax, car registration tax, license plate tax, vehicle sales tax (every time a car is sold, then resold), city property tax, county property tax, school district tax, school district bond taxes, school district levies, mosquito abatement tax, ambulance district tax, solid waste tax, utility franchise fees/taxes (telephone, electric, cable, etc.), taxes on food, fees to enter state and federal parks and lands that you as a taxpayer are already paying to maintain, fees for fishing and hunting licenses, fees for boat, snow machines, 4-wheeler permits/licenses, trailer licenses/registration/permit fees, fees to file various paperwork at local, state and federal offices, fees to file various paperwork in the court systems — On and On!
U.S. taxpayers have been had! How much more do you think the collective patience of this country will remain intact? I don’t believe we have much longer.
Cut pay. Fine. If a good teacher won’t stick around and teach for that rate, hire one of these new graduates that can’t find a good job and mold them into good teachers. If someone else won’t do the job for the wage, cut them and move on. This is the real world not everyone bats baseball.
Parks are an amenity that everyone can use, and the heaviest users seem to be middle to low income people. Let’s keep the public parks. But how about selling the public golf course?
Unlike a public pool or park, user fees are too expensive for most residents to really use on a regular basis, it requires a vast amount of space, and the upkeep on it must surely be an extravagance for a city in tight financial times. I am pretty confident that if you looked at what it costs to maintain and staff the golf course, what it brings in, and the number of residents it actually serves, it would make sense. If it is really an amenity that people want, they will pay a private company to play there.
If the very few people who use it can’t sustain it with their fees, it could be redeveloped into nice housing – perhaps that would be enough to kick start revitalize the north end of town/abandoned Fred Meyer shopping center area.
Just a thought.