by Bob Shannon
Having attended last Thursday’s Joint School Board and Board of Supervisors meeting at Hamilton Holmes Middle School, I have a few observations.
Dr. David White, King William County school superintendent, made specific mention of the low morale problem among school personnel. Of course the remedy, according to Dr. White, is an across-the-board 5% pay raise for everyone. He cited the lack of a pay raise last year and the need to keep King William schools’ compensation attractive/competitive.
Last year in an effort to keep anyone’s take home pay from declining, measures such as higher co-pays and deductibles had to be raised in order to accomplish this. Have these folks already forgotten the hundreds of thousands of dollars that tax payers picked up in their increased health care costs?
In the economic contraction beginning in 2008 and lasting six years, did a single school employee get laid off or lose their job? Did one school employee have to take a pay cut? Did a single school employee have their pension contributions cut? Did even one of them lose a week of the 12-13 weeks they get off each year ?
During that same period of time, millions of Americans were laid off or their jobs eliminated. Millions took pay cuts and lost their companies’ matching contributions to their 401(k) plans. Millions found new employment elsewhere often, at wages well below the job they had lost. Millions had to absorb large cuts as escalating health insurance premiums ate into their take home pay.
Personally, I experienced around a 30% reduction in my earnings for several years, and watched as my health insurance costs — 100% of which I pay myself — escalate from a manageable $3,000 annually to over $8,000 annually.
These folks, as Grandma used to say, “ought to count their blessings”. Their jobs are insulated from the ups and downs of the private sector where people underwent real and lasting economic pain.
The King William T.E.A. Party ran paid newspaper ads last year showing significant pay increases from 2012—2017 among the administrative staffs at the schools. The Assistant Superintendent alone went from $94,000 salary to $110,000.
As a spokesman for the maligned tax payers in King William, let me say this as bluntly as I possibly can…..” We are sick and tired of having to listen to the whining sob story each year from this crowd”. If you believe you are not being adequately compensated for the nine-month-a-year job you have, if you don’t account for the Cadillac benefit package you have…..fine. Quit your job at the schools and come out here in the real world and subject yourself to the same harsh reality the rest of us dealt with for 10 years. Stop whining and leave the cocoon you have been sheltered in for your entire career.
Bob Shannon is founder of the King William County T.E.A. Party (Taxed Enough Already).
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