Posted on 09/15/2010 7:31:35 AM PDT by MichCapCon
Grand Rapids Public School Superintendent Bernard Taylor wants to use money pitched by the Obama administration to halt teacher layoffs. But Taylor plans to use the cash to pay for health care costs for existing district employees.
In August, the U.S. House of Representatives had a special session to approve a $26 billion jobs bill that the politicians said would save teachers from being laid off. At the time, some Republicans said it was a "giveaway to teachers' unions."
Taylor said at a recent school board meeting that he would like to use the $3.5 million his district will receive from the jobs bill to offset an additional 3-percent payment employees had to make this year for retiree health care.
Taylor said there were restrictions on how the money could be spent and wanted to make sure it could be done properly.
"A 3-percent decrease in wages during these days and times, is something that people have to adjust to," Taylor said. "If it is something we can rectify, we need to look at ways to do that."
Michael Van Beek, the Mackinac Center For Public Policy's director of education policy, said Grand Rapids teachers were already paying 5.5 percent of their salary toward health care costs and the additional 3-percent pushed the total to 8.5 percent. Overall, Grand Rapids teachers made on average a salary of $56,035 a year.
"This bailout was sold to American taxpayers as a way to keep teachers in classrooms and prevent further cuts to school programs," Van Beek said. "I doubt they'd approve of spending it all on retiree health benefits for teachers, especially when benefits of this kind have become virtually extinct in the private-sector."
(Excerpt) Read more at michigancapitolconfidential.com ...
MI ping
A year or so ago Superintendent Bernard Taylor proposed trying to force parents who take their kids out of public schools to PAY MORE. That helped define the kind of relationship this St Louis jackoff wants to have with the community here. Then, the recent school board election results were a minor disaster. Thanks MichCapCon.
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