Well, you can kiss that money goodbye...

Summary paragraph: In which Menin laments that one of the quickest fixes to the cash crisis affecting the Newburyport Schools in 2008-2009, the possibility of the City employees joining the GIC, the state umbrella insurance policy, was voted down by some of the unions. The estimated reductions in City expenses had the unions agreed to the change were between $300,000 and $800,000, according to estimates he had seen.

This isn't an anti-union rant. Let me establish that from the beginning. In fact, in my life, I have been a dues-paying member of two different unions, the New York State United Teachers, and the Communications Workers of America. My cousin served as Union Vice President under Albert Shanker. As a matter of fact, I was out on strike for seven weeks in the coldest winter in Buffalo history, 1977, when the wind chill while we walked the line was -64 degrees. Altough I am and have been perfectly comfortable negotiating a contract as part of management, I suspect that I'm the only person in the School Committee race who has actually been both a union member and been seated at the management side of the table.

For an immediate, desperately needed source of revenue, it was absolutely critical that the adoption, facilitated by the Mayor, of the GIC happen. In order to make that happen, the Mayor needed to post a meeting of all (7) of the unions that bargain with the City, giving them 30 days notice. Even with the extension of 29 days granted by the legislature, this meeting, which was to be called a Public Employees Council, we still needed waivers from each union to meet without 30 days notice. Although some of the unions refused to show up at the first meeting, a meeting was finally arranged after some of the unions begrudgingly filed waivers, artificially reducing the time left to cut the deal.

The next step was reviewing the available options under GIC, and then to vote on whether to enter the program. Each union was given a weighted vote, depending on their total membership; by my calculations, the teachers union represented around 55-60% of the vote, AFSCME represented somewhere around 35% of the vote, and the rest were divided between the two police unions, the fire department, retirees and the Teamsters (I think those were the seven at the table).

The threshold for approval was 70% of the vote. Do the numbers. They were eminently reachable through a number of combinations.

I have received an e-mail from the Mayor's office in the last half hour stating that the PEC voted not to go into the GIC program this year, but explore the possibility of joining in 2010.

I am disappointed, but not as disappointed as I am angry. Very angry.

Not the senseless, directed in every direction sort of angry, More the focused, disgusted, appalled kind of angry.

Knowing that we are facing a year as bad as last year, and knowing that we have already turned down an override, I would like to have a series of questions answered.

• I would like an exact timetable of the actions taken by the Mayor to move this idea forward since August 30, 2007.
• I would like to know exactly which unions attended and which didn't attend the first meeting of the PEC convened by the Mayor, apparently held sometime in September (this was before we knew about the October 29 extension).
• I would like to know the exact dates the waivers arrived from the unions into the Mayor's office.
• I would like to know how many PEC meetings were held, when they were and when the vote was actually taken.
• I want to know which unions voted for, and which against entering GIC; if it was unanimous, what their issues were. Given the difficulty framing a short window for entry into the program (legislation passed in July, guidelines available in August, window originally closing September 30) I'm willing to give everybody the summer off- but I want a public accounting of sequence of events from September 1 to October 30. Who called what meetings, who showed, and when was the no go decision made.
• For those unions who voted no, I would like to know within a half percentage point the number of members who are residents of Newburyport. I want to know the percentage of people each union represents who are actually residents of this City. Not to put too fine a point on it, but one could draw a conclusion that a union representing a considerable number of people who live outside of the City they serve might be less inclined to respond to the financial reality facing the city, the kids and the schools ("give a damn").

Somehow, somewhere, the kids of Newburyport just got royally screwed. I want to understand the exact circumstances of that sequence of events; more than that, I want to understand, really
understand the underlying principles, or lack thereof, that drove the unions to make the choice they did. I'm not looking for an argument, or a scapegoat; I genuinely want to understand what
the issues were that took a greater priority at that table than the needs of the schools, which have laid off or attritted in the range 60 FTE's in five years.

I don't expect we'll get answers to those questions until I raise them on the floor of the School Committee, or as a part of the Revenue Task Force; and doubt we'll get answers even then. You should know that the Task Force has as of three weeks ago sent a strong recommendation to the Mayor to make this happen. It didn't, and whether that was through the Mayor's action or inaction, the caution or intransigence of the unions at the table, this community deserves answers.

The community deserves answers. The unwillingness, or distrust, or misunderstanding of the PEC, and their failure to adopt a quick-fix solution to a crisis we have been facing for several years needs to be explained to the community. It's not like the GIC offered anything less than are getting now in benefits; it just offered a windfall savings that would have been available to save further cuts of teacher jobs, class size increases, and the introduction of support services to students to keep us competitive.