TEACHERS CONTRACT PT 4 … or … THE JUDAS ACT OF LADY BOOTS & THE GANG
BY DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY
Part 4 of a Series
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, DEC. 10, 2015) — Yes, THE PLANET said Three Parts to the series on the phony deal authored by the Pittsfield School Committee in the teachers’ contract. Kathy Yon — a.k.a. Lady Boots The Betrayer — signed for the Pittsfield School Committee with the United Educators of Pittsfield. Alas, though. In a miracle of the fishes and loaves, the three parts became five. Part 4 today, 5 tomorrow.
THE PLANET has dug up more outrageous information on the UEP pact. Here are the 5 Acts.
1. They Got Caught ‘cause THE PLANET Caught Them
The first point THE PLANET makes today is how we caught The Suits, scarlet filanges and all, lying to you. We caught them hiding the step increases by not publishing them as they should have. When we received a copy of the contract — signed, don’t forget, the day after the election to rob you of voicing any displeasure — our alert informer asked, “Is there something wrong with my computer, or are they hiding the salary schedules [that should be there] in this document?” We replied that it wasn’t the computer. It was the deceit of Lady Boots and the other mofogos on the committee she chairs.
The Suits didn’t anticipate getting caught. Miscreants, official and otherwise, never do. They thought in the post-election lull, they would get away with this larceny. They didn’t count on THE PLANET and The Secret Squadron. In this lapse, Lady Boots and the other jamokes just signed their own political death warrants. Film at 11.
2. Your ‘Representatives’ Twerked You
Second, The Suits tried to hide the actual pay raises by publicly referring only to the contracts’ 1% cost-of-living raises. They counted on the local mainstream media to remain asleep. They didn’t count on this nosy, ballsy investigative reporter and his team digging out the documents that would, and could, alone, provide the true picture of the actual raises received by the more than 1,000 school department employees covered in this contract [ED. NOTE: The school department employs 1,200 people. The city side employs 491]. Not one of your school committee members did this digging or asked the tough questions: Not Lady Boots, Josh Cutler, Pam Farron, Tony Riello, Dan Elias, or Cynthia Taylor. Each of these “profiles in courage” pulled the ripcord and bailed out on you. Boots did the Judas thing. Cutler slobbered himself with the kind of suck-up ambition that has too long prefaced the disastrous “success” that has ruined the city. Farron is getting all Venus Blue on us. Riello’s copped out. Taylor’s twerking. Same goes for your city councilors. Your “representatives” sold you down the Housatonic. Only THE PLANET represented you when it came to the dirty work.
3. 27 Pages Reveal the Deception
Third, in the contract that we posted online in Part 1 and 2, there were three blank pages. They were the pages for the step raises. Even that was a deception. Once Terry Kinnas dug out the documents from JIV‘s administration, the record showed not three pages but 27 pages. It took 27 pages of tiny numbers on large spreadsheet grids to record the raises. That’s where they hid the actual pay hikes: within those numbers they deliberately left out of the online contract, assuming no one would dig them out.
4. Numbers Worse than First Thought
Fourth, since THE PLANET initially published the enormity of the pay raises, Kinnas, armed with more comprehensive data, went back in and re-calculated the teacher salary hikes. They are worse than first reported, going up from our originally posted 15 — 18 percent to 16.2% — 18.2%.
5. Watch Those Steps — They’re Lulus
Fifth, to report accurately and give readers and listeners an honest accounting of the pay raises, one must factor in the step increases. Neither iBerkshires, The Boring Broadsheet, nor any other local media outlet did that. They lazily printed only what The Suits handed them. THE PLANET alone went to work and investigated. We asked, “What do the steps actually mean?” Kinnas explained it best: Take what the salaries were before this contract and compare it to what they will be in three years, when the contract ends. Here’s the chart that boils this down:
——– 000 ——–
Teachers Contract fy 16 thru fy18
Bachelor Degree
Low end … to … high end
Step 1 — $37,334 … fy15 $37,334
Step 2 — $38,646 (a gain of $1,312 or 3.51%) … fy16 $38,646 (a gain of $1,312 or 3.514%)
Step 3 — $41,000 (+$2,354 or 6.09%) … fy17 $41,410 (+$2,764 or 7.152%)
Step 4 — $43,605 (+$2,605 or 6.35%) … fy18 $44,371 (+$2,961 or 7.150%)
3 yr. contract total $6,271 more (15.96%) to $7,037 additional (17.817%) … Actual change based on dollars — 16.2%— 18% This does not include longevity pay of $500 to a $1,000 a year.
Top of scale, B.A., $65,686 … fy16 $65,686 … step 20/19 $65,793 … fy17 $66,451 …$66,947 … fy18 $68,122
Masters
Step 1 — $41,308 … fy15 $41,308
Step 2 — $42,760 (+$1,452 or 3.52%) … fy16 $42,760 (+$1,452 or 3.515%)
Step 3 — $45,363 (+$2,603 or 6.09%) … fy17 $45,817 or (+$3,057 or 7.149%)
Step 4 — $48,367 (+$3,004 or 6.62%) … fy18 $49,093 (+$3,276 or 7.150%)
3 yr. contract total $7,059 more or 16.22% to $7,785 or 17.814% … Actual percentage change based on dollars — 16.5%— 18.2%
ALSO, THROWN IN AS A BONUS: The amount of money Pittsfield taxpayers have lost through school choice and funding of one charter school: FY16 net School Choice and Charter School Funds lost $4,019,828 … FY15 net School Choice and Charter School Funds lost $3,263,737. Total lost in the past two years to school choice: $7,283,565
——– 000 ——–
Tomorrow, we continue to pound away (Yes, Virginia, there is Pt. 5). Pay attention. Take notes. Get angry. Don’t forget what they did to you.
—————————————————————————————————-
“Lay me on an anvil, O God. / Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. / Let me pry loose old walls. / Let me lift and loosen old foundations.” — Carl Sandburg, from “Prayers of Steel,” (1918).
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
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More like “Profiles In Cabbage”
Pittsfield politics is screwed financially!
Teachers will receive 16.2% – 18.5% pay raises over the next 3 fiscal years.
The municipality will reach its tax levy ceiling by fiscal year 2019, and will be unable to raise taxes within the next 3 to 4 fiscal years.
Sabic Plastics is shedding 300 full time, living wage jobs by 2017, which will result in another additional 200 lost jobs in Pittsfield.
The financing for the new Taconic High School will begin in 2016, which will raise municipal taxes in Pittsfield to an all time record high level.
Pittsfield has about one-half billion dollars in OPEB liabilities or debts.
About 70% of local residents in Pittsfield live in poverty and rely on welfare assistance and social services programs.
Thousands of people have moved away from Pittsfield over the past 15 years, which means Pittsfield’s tax base is shrinking.
The lovely Linda Tyer does not have executive level experience to run Pittsfield politics, especially when Pittsfield’s finances are nearing financial insolvency and possible future bankruptcy.
Pittsfield politics is totally corrupt because the one party lead state and local political hacks only serve the vested interests.
Pittsfield politics will never change in my lifetime!
Let’s see the names of those who put together this contract and those who kept the details hidden. This seems to have some kind of devious intent and people who purposely do harm should be outed by name. The citizens need to know who is honorably representing them and who is screwing them.
Perhaps their is a state agency that should look into it as well because this does not seem to be honest government.
A rigged system. Insanity.
Problem is that the Democrat controlled state government isn’t all that honest either.
This is the reason why we called to vote out every incumbent on School Committee, City Council and Mayor. Corrupt.
How’d you do?
I exercised my right to vote.
Touche, spagirl!
Yon and Amuso. More to come with these names, wait and see. Names which will forever reign in infamy in Pittsfield.
The problem with the contract is teachers already had a great contract. vacation on top of vacation, who gets two months off a year? Half days, sick days,no days, snow days. Lady Boots should be ashamed. Terry was speaking at comment period last night and was asked to wrap it up at three minutes, are you kidding Bootsy? Did you hear Behnke’s presentation concerning the contract, incredible! Cutler is a phony, where did this guy come from? Riello should have been a stand up comedienne.
Lady Boots (Kathy Yon) must have lots of friends in the school department that she wants to reward for, well, just being her friends. She is rewarding one group of people at the expense of another (the struggling taxpayers). She is creating a situation of complete inequality in a city with 70% living in poverty. She is breaking the backs of the struggling people in this city. I single out Kathy Yon because she seems to be the leader of this insanity, but all the school committee members are guilty of allowing these outrageous salary increases as well as all people at all levels of city government who stood silent while this happened.
Such deceit and secrecy should not be allowed to continue.
Yeah and don’t forget all those cash-stuffed envelopes that don’t exist and never change hands when no one is looking!!!! Life is good for those in the Inside …
Did you know the girls at the Registry of Deeds pull over 70 g now, and The Registrar over 100 g?
Wow! Did you know that 10 of the folks at BCC pull in over 100 g. They have 4 vice presidents. If we use Planet math and include the bennies over 30 pull in over 100g. All for a 30 week year. and they only graduate around 250 people per year.
TM, yes public colleges are raping the taxpayer too. But 2 wrongs don’t make a right. The entire public education system is a huge money making venture (aka scam) at the expense of the taxpayer. Corruption runs rampant.
Let’s not forget that they all back Democrats and will go crazy over Hillary at election time. They will be chanting about equality and fairness in pay when they themselves feel no guilt at all about getting money any way they can even when it means taxing their neighbors to death to pay for their large salaries. It’s so much hypocrisy.
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/letters/ci_29035658/letter-yon-is-committed-pittsfield-schools
Did anyone really feel this corpse would represent anything more than the teachers and their union? She needs to end up on her husbands funeral home soon. She’s already embalmed from what I’m told
Here’s a list of her (once)future (soon to be) accomplishments. Only thing she succeeded in was using the money. Common core was a joke, the ‘innovative methods’ was a joke. School performance is a joke citywide
http://pittsfieldgazette.com/katherine-yon-for-school-committee-p3250-140.htm
What is Blasphemy for $100 chuck….
Sounds like a threat.
Death comes to is all Thomas … Its part of life
Right Demetrius, death comes to is all.
No threat intended. Old age and natural causes will do nicely.
The author of the letter is a megahack himself
I posted about this here and on the Eagle when the contract was first announced, explaining that while they SAID it was a 1% increase, the scam was that the 1% was what the teachers/union calls “new money,” and that the real raises were in the steps. Please understand that that is NOT a new concept unique to this contract. Those steps have existed for decades. Every year, every teacher goes up a step and gets the new pay grade/level associated with that new step…and the steps ARE substantial as Dan showed above.
The whole steps concept was brought in many, many years ago, when teachers actually were dramatically underpaid, to enable districts to attempt to catch teachers up spread out across several years, or several contracts even. They have more than outlived their usefulness at this point and need to be negotiated down or out in EVERY district, because they are in every teachers’ contract in MA.
“One sweet dream
Pick up the bags
get in the limousine
Soon we’ll be away from here
Step on the gas and wipe that tear away
One sweet dream
Came true
Today
Came true
Today
Came true
Today”
Where was Amuso, , LOw, Tes on this, and what is L T’s thinking right now?
I would like to know as well. Did the mayor and city council know this was coming down? If not why not? and if so are they just fine with it?
Will all councilors please weigh in? and the mayor as well? Please do not hide on this one or we may think you were part of the charade.
Registrar of Deeds was a feel good election, thinking the Good ol Boyz were pitted against the lonely hearts, soon to be Registrar,whom the Planet supported, and thus payroll at the Deeds was jettisoned upwards 100 thousands if dollars. Yet with even more vigorous complaint the educators are making to much. can you have it both ways? Absolutely not.
These Boots are made for Walkin,and that’s what their gonna to do, one of these days these Boots are gonna Walk all over you.
Nancy Sinatra’s one hit .Unfortunately, this school committee has numerous hits that will cost the taxpayers more.
Basically there is nothing that can be done about all the above posts. This process is hard wired into the political system and only disgruntled online comments will be the result of the way it has always been.
Just be prepared to pay for it.
If you think you (we) can change this flow of tax payer dollars into that system….I have a bridge I want to sell you.
The key word is sell. As in sell your house and get the hell away from here
I helped out with Mr. Gaetani’s show yesterday and he spoke on this very issue. Be sure to watch his show tomorrow.
Until the city goes bankrupt then contracts are null and void.
Arlos
I think the City Council would do what it takes to prevent a bankruptcy so that every union contract will continue to see all benefits that they have managed to hammer out. Plowing and similar city maintenance would bite the dust before a single contract was tampered with.
Sean, sadly you are correct because they have all the money and therefore make all the rules. I do find it helpful, to myself anyways, to come here on this blog and vent. I thank Dan for providing this venue to all of us.
Sean, You may be right. Watch Gaetani’s show today. He may be right in what he is saying. I suggest everyone watch it. It is an excellent show with details to beat the crooked politicians.
Key word give, give to the troft, and give your home away cuz it ain’t worth anything.
All of them are complicit on this deal, Thanx to the Planet again for shedding light from the shadows.
I agree. The Berkshire are all about people who will do anything for a buck. Even cheat their neighbors. So sad!!! It’s all about getting as much money as you can and all kinds of unethical behavior is allowed.
Dan I wonder if you could get Mrs Yon and Mrs Amuso on your show to discuss this issue.
ha ha ha haaaa
splitting a gut here boss
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot !!! http://www.berkshireeagle.com/local/ci_29229631/school-officials-want-skate-park-closed-when-phs “It’s pretty nice to see teenagers on BMX bikes and youngsters on scooters with their parents [watching] in lawn chairs,” McCandless added.
What an idiot. Like its some Little league game. Ive never seen an adult in a lawn chair there, Jiv. Wake up and smell the dye job on your beard.
I have driven by and seen that, usually a parent watching over some younger kids. Probably to keep them safe from some of the older kids.
The funding for that Skateboard Park was for all the kids in Pittsfield. The School Committee response is shallow. If this happened at Dunkin Donuts would they charge to close it as well? Get a damn clue. The problem lies within your school not the skate park.
You are absolutely correct spa. I walk by that park all the time and the users are generally well mannered and respectful. the PHS students involved in the brawl were basically truant and that incident could have happened in any of the nearby parking lots or on school grounds that day.
the problem is the open campus policy, the lack of effective truancy enforcement, and a school administration at PHS that simply has no control in that building. I would bet that the number of people who cause the problems are fewer than 20, but those 20 are allowed to roam, terrorize, and rule the remaining 900 or so in the building.
the school resource officer from what I hear is good with the kids – but she has no real muscle to control those 20 kids.
the effects of shutting down Hibbard continue to daily plague the system.
It doesn’t surprise me that Amuso, Cotton, Lothrapp Krol, et al knew nothing.
Were they all blind sided? Had no clue this was even going down? Would they admit it if true?
Dusty..It makes no difference whether they knew it or not. The point is they should have known it. Any one who didn’t, should be removed from their elected position, as they were elected to serve the people. What we have here in pittsfield, is politicians serving themselves and their friends..the gob and sig’s. Today on the Gaetani show, he lays out a plan to rid ourselves of these cancers. His tv show is must see for all non gob and sig. People need to be prepared to act, if they want to solve the city’s problems with these sob’s.
As I have said before, there was nothing new here! The same contractual structure has been in place for decades. They get away with calling it a 1% raise because 1% is the amount of NEW money added to the steps. Those steps, and their accordant 3-7% increases year to year, have been there for 20-30 years!
If Mazzeo did what she did to Krol,Clairmont and especially Lothrop, don’t think I would have hugged her the other night . Lothrop you have no tact and quite frankly in the twelve years you were a City Councilor, you were a self indulgent, pompous fool. The easiest vote comment, not letting the taxpayer vote on the school construction,and the infamous Council pay increase proposed by you and shot down by the Council were a couple of examples. Where we’re you on the latest school contracts that were hidden from the taxpayer? The Farewell Tour is about over,Adios Jack.
You could hear a pin drop
When you see
Lothrop, be sure to conversate with him.
How about the “Critical Footprint” for economic development, his so called compromise with Ruberto on the city owned airport expansion ? Hell, we have to fight off the corporate jets loaded with executives clamoring to relocate their company here. No??? Maybe it makes it easier and safer for them to leave ???
Right on miss vito.
Mr. Valenti, Do you think that enough Non Gob and Sig citizens could be convinced to become informed and vote in all future elections? I watch your show and as you know, I post on this site. I also watch Mr. Gaetani’s show. I don’t know where the two of you get the energy to carry on with so few citizens following the good advise the two of you try to give to the Pittsfield citizens. Pleas dont give up. Maybe, just maybe if enough citizens see what has been going on in the school dep. they will finally come to there senses. I am begining to wonder, if all this posting etc. will ever lead to something new in Pittsfield. I guess I will just go on hoping. After all what else can we do?
DEPRESSED
I totally believe that enough such citizens could be convinced to become involved and vote. You have repeatedly made the point that posting comments on THE PLANET is futile, ironically, made while you post comments on THE PLANET. Part of this “community bulletin board” is to allow for venting. Another part is the sharing of views. Still a third is the spread of information. Yet another can be found in that great phrase, “the marketplace of ideas.” We are COMMUNICATING. That’s what we’re doing here. Alone and in the abstract, it is not a sufficient condition for the action to which you refer, but it is a necessary condition for action, a prerequisite, if you will. As for the energy, it comes from caring; it comes from being passionate about the things I choose to do with my life; it comes from being alive. I will not be a spectator. I will be a conductor.
voting is not enough – I guess we need to run too.
Planet posters. Although I rarely agree with the position of the Eagle Editor, I think everyone should read today’s main editorial. It has to do with gun violence. Pay particular attention to the last four paragraphs. Please post back. I think this is a topic we should shed some light on.
Speaking of Mr Lothrup, I would like to know if he has any comment on the new school budget. Is he happy with it or not?
SAme for Mr Krol and Mrs Mazzeo and the rest of them. Are they OK with it or have they gone under ground like cowards.
Below is an excerpt from Andy Mckeever’s iBerkshires article earlier this year:
The salary scale was crafted in such a way that one and a half steps were added to the matrix at the top — thus raising the maximum salary — and then also removing two steps from the bottom to lift the minimum salary.
“By eliminating the bottom, the minimum salary goes up,” Sheran said. “One of our goals was to increase and be more competitive all around.”
http://www.iberkshires.com/story/50197/Pittsfield-Schools-Teachers-Union-Agree-To-New-Three-year-Contract.html
“I’m very happy. I think it is a fair deal and gives us stability for the next three years,” said UEP President Brendan Sheran.
Right. Andy’s reporting was accurate, and he does a good job at iBerkshires. Somewhere, though, the editorial function of the media must come into play. Accuracy in reporting is one element of presenting the Truth of a story. Another element is to weigh in with informed judgments of the content. This is not the same as “bias” or “preconceptions.” Informed judgment in the presentation of Truth is best done from the initial position of neutrality.
Great reporting Dan – while you are out finding the truth our illustrious City Council members are arguing ad nauseam over how the next vice president (which is a meaningless job) will be chosen – Pittsfield petty politics as usual.