This power point slide for Let Duluth Vote tells the tale. If only Plan B’s first phase of building repair went into effect Duluth would save $271 million over the Red Plan. If the more problematic Phase 2 went into effect, after a public vote, There would still be $127 million in savings.
This is apparently too complicated for the Duluth News Tribune to understand. The School Board proudly announced that their Red Plan would save an additional $5 million annually times 20 years for a total of about $100 million. How do they do this? They fire fifty teachers a year. It never occurred to the Trib that if Let Duluth Vote wanted to flimflam Duluth they could make the same claim. In fact, the flimflam is getting flimsier.
Now the District claims that there will only be $800,000 of energy savings. A couple years ago they claimed they would save over two million in energy costs. What happened to the energy savings? What ever happened to it they still want to sell their Red Plan based on five million annual savings. That means they bumped up staff cuts from $3.2 million to $4.2 million to achieve it. Its a perfect decision for brick lovers.
If you want more savings than Plan B advertises just cut an additional $100 million in teachers like the Red Plan does. Of course, when the District first touted these savings two years ago Harry Welty pointed out that this savings would require the cooperation of the nine successively elected school boards over the next 18 years. This is quite a promise. Afterall, people who value teachers over bricks might get elected and decide to hire the teachers back.
