From Harford County Education Association President Ryan Burbey:
Dear Concerned Citizens,
It is extremely important that we act to support funding our schools. I am asking you to complete a few simple tasks that will help us to fight for the funding that HCPS desperately needs.
–Attend the County Executive’s Budget Hearing on Jan. 28th 6PM at Aberdeen High School. Bring your family. Ask your friends, extended family and neighbors to come. We need to show community support for education. If you plan to speak, come early to sign up.
–If you have not already signed our petition for education funding follow this link and sign it now. Please also send this petition to all your email contacts.
–Join our FaceBook page Harford Students Count on Us https://www.facebook.com/pages/Harford-Students-Count-on-Us/112404392106446?fref=ts
–Email County Executive David Craig telling him to fully fund the education budget. Follow this link and click on Email County Executive. Write how the lack of funding is hurting students, your family and our schools. If you would rather just cut and paste an email, below is the text of an email you can send. Put FUND THE 2013-14 HCPS BUDGET in the subject line:
“I am asking you to fund the Proposed 2013-14 HCPS Budget. HCPS is currently one of the lowest funded school systems in Maryland. HCPS desperately needs funds to maintain the instructional program and fulfill obligations to school system employees. Our children deserve quality schools. Building quality schools for the 21st century is not possible without adequate funding. Show that education is your number one priority by funding the Proposed 2013-14 HCPS Budget.”
If we do not act to support increased funding for our schools, it will result in cuts which will negatively impact HCPS students and our community. Please share this email with all your contacts. Thank you for your commitment to education.
Sincerely,
Ryan Burbey
President-HCEA
School Funding Petition Link
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/542/164/438/harford-countys-children-deserve-quality-schools/#
Link to email the County Executive
http://www.harfordcountymd.gov/Executive/
@Ryan Buebey
You can’t take the dick out of dickhead.
And what are you?
Well you can thank Burbeys hero John Dewey for our kids being mindless peons. Want a new school, take a pay cut to pay for it. After all, its for the kids.
Tell you what, Ryan, I will read your article after you do your job and defend some of your teachers, specifically and most recently, Mrs. Darden. Until then, mum is the word.
Mr. Burbey – if you are still following this thread, can you tell us what the 2013-2014 budget request is and how it compares to the 2012-2013 budget? Thank you…
All of the budget information is located here.
http://www.hcps.org/budget/
The transmittal letter and budget in brief outline those details.
http://www.hcps.org/boe/budget/content/fy14/proposed/TransmittalLetter.pdf
@ Mike Perrone Jr: For the fiscal year 2014, Superintendent Robert Tomback has recommended an unrestricted operating budget of $442,872,460, which is an increase of $15.1 million, or 3.5%, over the current fiscal year. The increase is comprised of $6.3 million for salaries, $6.6 million for employee benefits and a $2.2 million increase in the cost of doing business. The school board may choose to amend Tomback’s proposal before adopting the budget, in a vote planned for Monday (Jan 28). The adopted budget will then be presented as funding request to county and state authorities. Hope that helps.
That does help, Cindy. Thank you.
All of the budget information is located here.
http://www.hcps.org/budget/
The transmittal letter and budget in brief outline those details.
http://www.hcps.org/boe/budget/content/fy14/proposed/TransmittalLetter.pdf
When unions stop their political gamesmanship with democrats, then I’ll be interested in your causes. The money that is wasted by unions as they grease the palms of their benefactors could certainly be put to better use.
when the teachers union stops playing politics and taking money from other departments and crying foul when someone mentions it. It amazes me that the union is good at doing smoke and mirrors about issues and not addressing the real issues. Gotta like what you guys have. We should fund the students and kick the bums out of the union.
What I don’t understand is why it always seems like the effect of attrition is ignored when it comes to salary increases. Let’s say that in a given year, 200 teachers leave HCPS and 70 of those 200 are retirees. Let’s say that the retirees are earning $35K a year more than the new hires who will replace them. Let’s also say that the 130 other teachers who leave are making $5K a year more than the new hires who will replace them. (70 x $35K + 130 x $5K) = $3.1M. (If anyone with better information can refine these figures, please feel free to do so.) In addition to teacher salaries, compensation for Support Services Staff looks to run about 62% of teacher compensation ($104M vs. $168M for FY 2013). So let’s assume that the savings due to attrition of Support Staff is 62% of $3.1M, or $1.9M.
So if my assumptions are valid, this means that in any given year – EVEN IF TOTAL SALARIES DON’T CHANGE – there should be about $5 million BUILT IN to the system for raises due to attrition. (Assuming that total staffing levels aren’t increasing, which they shouldn’t be considering that enrollment has been falling for a decade.) That $5 million isn’t money that that needs to be asked for, that’s money that’s already there! So for the three years that teachers in this county didn’t receive raises, where did that $5 million per year go? And for FY 2014, where is this $5 million going to go?
It doesn’t make sense that the Superintendent would request an additional $6.3 million for salaries if HCPS has been taking $5 million OUT of the salary pot every year.
Where do you get that 200 teachers leave HCPS every year? I don’t think it’s anywhere near that number and I don’t think 70 teachers retire every year either (I definitely don’t think that nearly twice as many teachers leave for other reasons than retire.)
I don’t disagree that HCPS wastes a lot of money, but the vast majority of that money wasted is at Central Office or in excessive highly paid school administrator positions and directly attributable to Tomback’s idiotic policies and obsession with creating new 6 figure salaried positions for his buddies. That’s just one of many reasons I doubt there’s a single teacher in Harford County who wants his contract renewed.
I got the 200 from an Aegis article on 1/11 – I believe the actual figure was 210. (The HCPS 2011-2012 Annual Report also stated the 180 new teachers were hired for last school year.) I got the @70 teachers retiring from the same article – I believe it said that only @35% of teachers who left left due to retirement.
I don’t doubt it… I’m sure the central office is grossly overstaffed and overpaid…
Mr Burbey:
You’ll have my support for increased funding when you convince the county to make a high school diploma valuable. Graduate only the students that show they understand Shakespeare, calculus, chemistry, biology, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, basic human health, balancing a checkbook and paying taxes, and who are competitive at four-year universities or trade schools without remedial education at the community college. A certificate of attendence for making it to the bus stop 95% of the time for 13 years does not show a meaningful return on taxpayer investment and does not warrant increased school funding.
I think what is being forgotten is that in the past most students were not expected to know much of what you say gives a diploma value. The vast majority of previous generations of students did not have to pass higher level science and math classes to graduate. The majority of students leaving high school found jobs in manufacturing, the military (where many learned a trade) and small business. You could drop out of school and still make a decent living for yourself working at Sparrow Point and other factories. Colleges and universities were for the top third of students. Today higher education has become big business and need a steady supply of of entrants to pay the bills. The result is that we have many students entering the college ranks that do not have the aptitude or motivation to be successful at that level who in the past would never have been allowed entry. They choose college because of poor employment prospects and we have allowed ourselves to be convinced that if you don’t graduate from college you are somehow a failure. I have friends from Europe that are absolutely amazed with our overemphasis on college education for jobs that need little more than some job specific or technical training. There have been no changes to the gene pool in the last couple of generations. Just like the ridiculous expectations of NCLB that 100% of students would be proficient in reading and math by 2015. Here is a suggestion. Award different types of high school diplomas like they have different degrees from college.
The majority of generations past weren’t able to graduate high school, because their labor was required on the farm or family business. K-6 or K-8 was sufficient for daily life.
College diplomas for entry-level jobs is an easy way to sort out the vast majority of applicants. When looking for one janitor, if you have 200 applicants and only four have diplomas (regardless of major), throwing away 196 of them and interviewing the remaining four (plus any that had previous janitorial experience) is an easy way to make the task manageable. Unnecessarily requiring a college diploma is also not an EEO-actionable complaint.
The county executive’s public hearing planned for tonight at Aberdeen High School has been postponed due to today’s weather-related school closing http://www.daggerpress.com/2013/01/28/county-executive-fy-2014-public-budget-hearing-postponed/
Mr. Burbey, it is hard for folks to have faith in the union when it continuously lets us down. I have repeatedly recommended that teachers in my building contact the union when they feel they are being wronged. Half of the time they never receive a reply. How do people justify paying for a service that they don’t get?
All concerns which HCEA receives are replied to in a timely manner. Any HCEA member who needs assistance need only email me or call me.
I Call “B***SH**”
So are we to bypass Mr. Ginsburg? If so, what exactly is his job?