Doing the Minimum

The most interesting discussion at this week’s school board meeting was a reprise of our July motion granting our hourly workers more than the minimum wage increase mandated by law. The DNT had a very short piece on this.

Some folks were paying attention to that discussion. One of them showed up hopefully to urge us to raise it by the additional dollar Art Johnston’s motion would have authorized had it passed.

Hourly worker Lynn spoke to us at the beginning of the meeting. I am not sure of the spelling of her last name but you can hear her request at the 8:58 mark on the youtube broadcast of the August meeting.

What she had listened to the previous month, July 21, 2015 ,included a long story from me about my son and the lunch crew at his school. That discussion began sometime before the 59:30 mark but I launch in with my story at the 1:08:15 mark.

I still shake my head at the reasoning of the majority who did not wish to entertain this $40,000 cost this year. Rosie Loeffler-Kemp particularly objected to its being placed on our spending list this year without having previously been discussed in our January Budgeting process. I pointed out that we also decided to spend an additional $150,000 to pay our substitute teachers more this summer and nearly a quarter million on legal expenses to kick Art Johnston off the Board. None of these additional expenses were vetted in the January Budgeting process.

Its not surpising that Lynn walked out of our meeting immediately after Art and my arguments fell on deaf ears once again.

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