The Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners voted last week to accept Superintendent Dr. Eugene White’s recommendation granting raises to four highly paid IPS administrators.
The School Board also voted to grant the superintendent a three percent raise.
Both actions by the IPS School Board were wrong.
The Indianapolis Public Schools aren’t Microsoft, Wal-Mart or Warren Buffett’s company. IPS, like nearly every school district in Indiana and many nationwide, and like many non-profits and for-profit entities, is facing severe economic pressures and stresses.
Indiana property tax caps are negatively impacting IPS’ transportation and maintenance budgets. And IPS’ loss of thousands of students in recent years, plus the Great Recession’s impact on state government revenues, has IPS facing between $20-$30 million in funding shortfalls.
IPS dodged scores of teacher layoffs this school year because of the one-time injection of federal stimulus money. This coming school year, IPS won’t be as fortunate.
IPS’ layoffs impact newer, younger teachers – many with the thrill and desire to teach using techniques and methods that engage today’s MTV/BET, Facebook, Wii-oriented, texting-tested students.
White said the four veteran IPS administrators deserved raises, pushing their salaries around $100,000 because they were taking on more responsibility.
Speaking Monday on WTLC-AM1310’s “Afternoons with Amos,” IPS Board President Michael Brown said the four administrators didn’t receive “raises.” Instead they were moving to “a different job responsibility with a different (higher) authorized salary.”
That may be true, but its semantics are not relevant to today’s economic realities.
How many of you reading this took on more responsibility at your job? Did you get a raise for that? If you’re like me and most Americans and Hoosiers, the answer is no.
When times were good, raises like those OK’d by IPS were fine. When times are hard, they’re an insult!
Board President Brown and White say that the other school districts pay their administrators more money. That keeping up with the Jones’ mentality doesn’t fly in these tough economic times.
In his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama called out the nation’s colleges and universities, urging them to show restraint in their tuition and costs.
Our public schools should show the same restraint. In this era of tight school budgets, school administrations and school boards should show leadership and freeze administrative salaries and if the budget woes are tough, roll some of those salaries back until the fiscal crisis passes.
The media industry, including the media I work for, have had salaries and raises frozen, even rolled back to weather the economic storm. If we in media can do it, so can those in education.
IPS must roll back the raises, immediately!
What I’m Hearing
in the Streets
It was an interesting week in the Marion County Prosecutor’s race as two candidates withdrew and the most powerful politician in the state openly entered the fray to replace the lame duck Prosecutor Carl Brizzi.
First, Helen Marchal, Brizzi’s and the Marion County Republican leadership’s handpicked choice to succeed Brizzi, suddenly backed out after only being in the race two weeks.
While Marchal’s decision was a shocker it didn’t surprise. For someone who was to be their party’s great hope, Marchal hadn’t capitalized on the media and public curiosity about this fresh face in local politics.
Marchal was virtually invisible to media and hadn’t even filed the necessary campaign committee paperwork with the county and state.
Worse, Marchal hadn’t even made courtesy calls to key leaders in her own party.
The morning she announced she was withdrawing for family reasons, I sat next to a leading Marion County Republican legislator at the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus’ annual Prayer Breakfast. I asked about Marchal’s candidacy and was shocked when this veteran GOP stalwart said he’d never met nor had a conversation with her.
Hearing that the top candidate for Marion County Republicans hadn’t even met one of their senior lawmakers was telling.
Immediately after Marchal’s withdrawal, Governor Mitch Daniels began flexing, summoning former prosecutor Scott Newman and GOP County Chair Tom John to his office.
In public statements and private talks, Daniels is pushing hard for his Chief Counsel Mark Massa to be the Republican prosecutor candidate.
Massa has the credentials – former Deputy Marion County Prosecutor and deputy U.S. Attorney. But we have no idea where he stands on the issues the next prosecutor must face. And more ominously, we have no idea where Massa stands on real justice for our African-American community.
And as the governor’s top legal advisor the past four years, Massa was there when Daniels concocted schemes of dubious legality, ranging from privatizing the lottery and the FSSA debacle.
To many, Daniels’ moves seem like a naked power grab to make sure that someone he can control controls the office that could investigate state government malfeasance.
Though to be fair, 20 years ago another Indiana governor injected himself in the Marion County prosecutor’s race. In 1990, then Gov. Evan Bayh pushed an attorney in his office, Jeff Modisett, as Marion County Democrats candidate for prosecutor.
In a razor thin election, Modisett won. Only to lose four years later to Scott Newman, in part because of backlash in the Black community over Modisett’s handling of the Mike Tyson case.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the Marchal withdrawal and with a Massa campaign looming, Democratic prosecutor candidate David Orentlicher suddenly announced he was withdrawing and throwing his support to front runner Terry Curry.
Speaking on “Afternoons with Amos,” Orentlicher said that a desire for Democrats to be unified and to win back the prosecutor’s office led him to his decision. A surprising decision given that he’d raised and had over $180,000 in the bank for his campaign.
Curry still has to get pass Marion County Assessor Greg Bowes’ underfunded, quixotic campaign. But it increasingly looks like it’ll be Curry vs. Massa in the high profile prosecutor’s race.
Venerable media personality Chuck Workman reminded me that back in 1974, he was Sports Director of the old WTTV/Channel 4 Sports Department. Thus Workman, not Anthony Calhoun was the first African-American Sports Director at an Indianapolis TV station. Thanks to Chuck for pointing out that error in Black History; just in time for this special month.
See ‘ya next week.
