August 28, 2012 – RI Future

August 28, 2012August 29, 2012

North Kingstown School Committee Silences Crowd

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nk school committee meeting — Unon members and residents packed a North Kingstown School Committee meeting.

About 300 people packed the North Kingstown High School auditorium for the school committee meeting, many of whom planned to address committee members about their decision to outsource custodians’ jobs to an out-of-state company.

And if you think they were upset at the beginning of the meeting when Dick Welch made a motion to move public comment to the end of the agenda, you should have heard them when the committee closed the meeting without letting the people have their say.

“Shame on you, shame on you,” chanted the crowd, filled with both local residents and union members from around the state.

School committee member Don Boscardin said they adjourned because the crowd was getting too rowdy. Welch declined to comment to RI Future.

Throughout the meeting, members bickered with each other over issues as small as how much toilet paper should be purchased for the next fiscal year.

Committee members Bill Mudge and Melvoid Benson played to the crowd by stalling the meeting with a myriad of mundane questions. School staff and Committee President Kim Page responded by talking down to them and sometimes cutting them short.

Mudge said in an email earlier in the day that the other committee members have frozen he and Benson out of the negotiating process. During the meeting, he threatened to reveal discussions from executive session.

“For the record, I was never advised by phone, e-mail or while I speaking with Mrs. Berglund and/or Mrs. Benson that a negotiations meeting had been convened and was underway in the superintendent’s office between ESP Union officials, Dr. Auger and School Committee Members Mrs. Page, Mr. Ceresi, Mr. Boscardin, and Mrs. Avanzato,” he wrote.

Earlier in the day, the union agreed to return to work on Wednesday, according to Judge Brian Stern, who was hearing a request for an injunction to end the work stoppage. In exchange, the school department agreed to continue working towards a resolution with the union.

The school committee still has some 30 days to nullify its contract with the out-of-state company hired to clean the public schools, though union officials expressed doubt that an agreement could be reached outside of a court decision. There are still some grievances and unfair labor practice complaints that could reverse the decision.

August 28, 2012August 28, 2012

NK Evades Responsibility With Custodian Contract

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I woke up today to an automated phone call from the school superintendent telling me that the first day of school in North Kingstown has been delayed by a strike. The Educational Support Personnel (ESP) union has walked out over the School Committee’s action to outsource the jobs of all 26 janitors, and so my daughter is home today instead.

As is usual, there is a welter of claims and counter-claims. The ESP union offered some pretty substantial concessions this spring. They say they met the dollar figure the School Committee had insisted was necessary. The Committee responded that they were close, but the superintendent had already budgeted some of the savings the union was offering so they needed more. An arbitrator was called in and that report offered a way to save $1.3 million over two years, but again that was measured over the previous year, not over the proposed budget, which already included some of those savings, so it wasn’t enough.

In response, the School Committee voted 5-2 to outsource the 26 custodian jobs. They did insist that the new contractor hire back as many of the custodians as possible, and I gather that 21 of them took the new deal: their old jobs at about 70% of salary, minus the health insurance and pension. In other words, around a 40-45% pay cut, give or take. Would you take that?

I talked to my daughter about this, and she told me about the custodian at the middle school who had encouraged her with a model car she and some classmates built for a Science Olympiad competition in seventh grade (their team won the state event, and went to the national event in Wisconsin that year), and about the elementary school custodian who talked and joked with the children in the cafeteria, but also knew them all, even the first graders. Those are the kind of people you get when the jobs are good jobs.

But I guess that kind of thing is to be part of the past now. Instead of jobs that can support a family, we’ll have jobs that people move through. We’ll have custodial staff stretched thinner, and we’ll have an outsourcing company that is making good money off the deal, that indispensable part of what some people call progress.

Will the district save money? Maybe this year. But the teacher contract comes up in the fall. What do you suppose will be their level of enthusiasm when the School Committee requests concessions to get through this fiscal storm?

Oh yes, that storm. In all the ire directed at the School Committe in this dispute, let’s not forget that it was the actions of the Town Council that precipitated this crisis. The School Committee told them last winter that they weren’t going to be able to meet the property-tax caps imposed by the state without severe pain. In response, the Town Council cut the school budget even further than the property tax cap demands. North Kingstown has a notoriously dysfunctional School Committee, but it was Council President Elizabeth Dolan, and members Michael Bestwick, Charlie Stamm, Carol Hueston, and Charles Brennan who have effectively put the screws to the custodians.

Council members I’ve spoken to seem proud that they’re willing to hold the line on taxes, but at what cost? North Kingstown’s taxes are already lower than average in the state, according to the tax effort formula defined in state law (75.5% of the average). In a conversation one summer evening this past July, one council member told me with certainty about the waste that could be cut out of the school budget. As I usually notice when people decry government waste to me, the member could supply no specific suggestion to cut beyond the job of an assistant to the superintendent, a cost of less than one fifteenth the amount they insisted be cut.

The custodian contract wasn’t the only change this year. Just looking at the high school (where my family’s attention is focused, for better or worse), the foreign language offerings have been slashed, school supplies cut way back, and graduation requirements lowered, all for budget reasons.

One of the curiosities of government around here that we take for granted is that we elect School Committee members, and don’t give them the independence to make their own decisions. I’m doing policy consulting work in other states lately, and I’ve noticed that in lots of states — maybe the majority outside New England — school departments are a parallel government, operated independently of the city or county where they are located, often with separate tax bills. School Committee members there are directly responsible to voters for the decisions they make. Around here, by contrast, the School Committee is subservient to the City or Town Council. The North Kingstown Council has spoken, its members are largely responsible for the budget crisis in the school department, but they take no heat for that. Union press releases inveigh against the School Committee, but ignore the Town Council. This, it seems to me, is the opposite of taking responsibility.

So, Liz Dolan: Your Council cut the school budget. You overruled the opinions of the people supposedly responsible for that budget. Where exactly is the waste? Michael Bestwick: Precisely what would you cut? Charles Brennan: Where else do we find savings? Please be specific. Carol Hueston: What other jobs are to be outsourced? Charlie Stamm: How do we settle this dispute? It is the straightforward consequence of your decisions: how will you defend those choices? Or will you just hope no one notices that you were behind the hard choices made by someone else?

August 28, 2012August 28, 2012

VIDEO: Labor Strike Cancels School in North Kingstown

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North Kingstown cancelled school today as a result of all school personnel striking in solidarity with the custodians whose jobs were outsourced to a private company earlier this summer.

About 70 school employees marched and formed a picket line in front of North Kingstown High School this morning, and plan to rally again tonight at a school committee meeting.

Several union members said negotiations ended with Superintendent Phil Auger ended at about 10:30 last night, even though they were willing to keep working towards a deal. School was not cancelled until 6:30 this morning. One parent at the high school this morning, a non-union member, said his family got the call just 15 minutes before the school bus was supposed to arrive.

Earlier this summer the school committee rejected the decision of an arbitrator that would have saved the district more than $1.3 million over the next two years and instead fired the school custodians and outsourced their jobs to an out-of-state company. Some custodians were hired back but at an approximately 30 percent cut in salary.

Teachers were not on the picket line this morning, but voted unanimously yesterday afternoon not to cross it either. While teachers voted to do so for at least two days, several union members at the high school this morning said they expect a court injunction will remand employees back to work as early as today.

Union officials said they will not ask members to defy a court order. Instead, they hope today’s action will ignite the interest of the people, who may be more persuasive in changing school committee members’ minds that union intermediaries have been.

Bill Mudge, a member of the school committee, has filed an Open Meetings Act complaint with the Attorney General’s office and has implored his colleagues to come back to the negotiating table.

Here’s a video of Nancy Ferencko, president of the education support professionals union in the North Kingstown school system addressing those on the picket line this morning:

August 28, 2012August 29, 2012

Cicilline vs. Gemma in the Rumble At RIC Tonight

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Tonight, Representative David Cicilline and Anthony Gemma will face each other head-to-head in WPRI’s televised debate. Unlike two years ago, it will only be the two of them, meaning that voters will be presented with a clear choice.

And this may be one of the most heated, or ugly, debates ever.

In comparison to two years ago, Mr. Gemma’s attacks on Mr. Cicilline have been beyond the pale. Yet, Mr. Cicilline appears to be the weakest in his electoral career since his loss to then-Sen. Rhoda Perry in 1992, two decades ago. Though a new WPRI poll shows Cicilline with a 12 point lead over Gemma, three times what it was for the last poll.

Going into this debate, both candidates have vastly different goals. Mr. Cicilline must project confidence while addressing voters’ fears about Providence. It’s a precarious position he’s in, the city of Providence is entirely out of his hands, yet his fate is inextricably tied up with it. He needs to address the fear of dishonesty voters have about him. Essentially he must use the debate to as a dry run against attacks likely to be used against him by Republican candidate Brendan Doherty in a general election; while at the same time focusing the race on national issues. And yet, he needs to do all this while warding off Mr. Gemma who will be standing right next to him.

Mr. Gemma, on the other hand, needs to project that his campaign has not come untethered. Unsupported allegations of voter fraud, an attack by an unpaid campaign worker comparing Mr. Cicilline to convicted child rapist Jerry Sandusky condemned not only by the state Democratic Party but also by his former field director (no fan of Mr. Cicilline’s) who accused Mr. Gemma’s campaign of rampant homophobia… and finally, Monday’s polling data from WPRI which put Mr. Cicilline with a comfortable 12 point lead over Mr. Gemma among likely Democratic primary voters. Plus, with nearly half of those voters unable to give him a favorability rating, this debate will virtually be Mr. Gemma’s only chance to introduce himself to the primary electorate.

Perennial candidate Chris Young polls 4.3% in the poll, within the +/- 5.7% margin of error. Mr. Young probably acts as a slight spoiler on Mr. Gemma’s campaign, though his effects are probably negligible.

Mr. Gemma now faces long odds. More than a campaign season has passed between this and the last poll of this election. That lack of polling actually served Mr. Gemma, since the lack of contrary evidence meant he could claim to be capable of defeating Mr. Cicilline. But now, that’s called into serious doubt. Not helpful was Monday’s flap about his campaign worker’s tweet, it looks as though Mr. Gemma’s campaign organization is disorganized, and the story of why his field director left is still unknown.

Mr. Cicilline, while certainly capable of winning the nomination, is in no way a shoo-in. He still has to win over voters who are unhappy with his performance as mayor, or skeptical of him as a Congressman. Call them loyalist-skeptics. The sort of people dismayed at the choices awaiting them: a vulnerable incumbent in Mr. Cicilline or a supremely unqualified insurgent in Mr. Gemma. And either will go up against Mr. Doherty, who will be considered “moderate” or a “maverick” if he only votes with his increasingly radical right-wing party 80% of the time. Polling bears this out. 48.1% of these loyalist-skeptics are uncertain of who they’d vote for if Mr. Cicilline loses the Democratic primary. Faced with a choice between Mr. Gemma and Mr. Doherty, many may well decide not to vote in the CD1 race.

Mr. Cicilline is further damaged by the reluctance of Mr. Gemma’s supporters to vote for him. I’ve long labelled Mr. Gemma’s supporters as a loose “anti-Cicilline coalition.” The WPRI poll supports this label. 52.1% of his voters would back Mr. Doherty in November. Merely 28.7% would stay loyal to the Democratic candidate (and Republicans accuse RI voters of undue party tribalism towards the Democrats). Had this anti-Cicilline coalition been able to field a more credible candidate than Mr. Gemma, it seems likely they would be polling ahead of Mr. Cicilline, and might well be in shape to maintain Democratic control of CD1.

Unfortunately for them, their candidate is Anthony Gemma. Mr. Gemma has taken what appeared to be a simple task: annihilate Mr. Cicilline on Providence’s financial straits and Mr. Cicilline’s previous statements about its health and then pivot to national issues after the primary; and turned it into a mess involving theoretical (and near impossible) mass conspiracy to defraud elections on the part of the Democratic Party. He also has failed to woo the press, a key need for an insurgent candidate short on cash. Instead, Mr. Gemma’s strategy has been to slowly string the press along; over-hyping campaign events and under-delivering. The press hates this. Mr. Gemma’s “it’s about jobs” campaign slogan is attached to a promise of 10,000 jobs, the sort of promise a gubernatorial candidate might make is simply not sticking. And at times, it’s seemed like he’s the third wheel in this race; Mr. Doherty’s campaign has never even deigned to attack him, instead gearing their whole campaign against David Cicilline.

Make no mistake or quibble about it, the Rhode Island Democratic Party finds itself in the tightest spot in CD1 it’s been in in a long time. This is an election it should, by all rights, be able to easily win. Its Republican counterpart is woefully weak, its voters are reliably Democratic under normal circumstances, the national Republican Party is seen as the party of the rich and fueled by a Tea Party movement which has surpassed atheists as the most hated group in America. Its inability to deal with the flaws of its incumbent, either by defusing the attack or removing the incumbent, speaks to broader issues in the Party.

This will not be the election in which it finally has a conversation about those issues. Instead, it will be one where it hobbles on, regardless.

August 28, 2012August 28, 2012

NK School Committeeman Cries Foul On Outsourcing

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North Kingstown School Committee member Bill Mudge said the school committee and superintendent have not negotiated in good faith with the custodians and its union and said at “Tuesday night’s meeting I will request a vote of the entire S/C to hold a special/open meeting to consider the unions June 26, 2012 proposal” in an email he sent out to state and town officials Monday evening.

“Unfortunately, I believe that there has been complete breakdown in the negotiation process, absence of School Committee leadership and that school committee erred, when it failed to consider the union’s proposal presented to Attorney Carroll on June 26,” he wrote in the email.

All school personnel have decided either to strike or not cross a picket line today, which was supposed to be the first day of school. They are protesting the huge wage cuts custodians took when their jobs were outsourced to a private company.

The school committee meets tonight.

Mudge has been critical of the way the school committee has handled the situation with the 26 custodians, whose jobs were outsourced to the private company GCA and took an average pay cut of about $13,000.

“What happened was most unethical,” he said in a phone interview earlier in the day. “I don’t know what the ultimate result would have been but we didn’t bargain in good faith and I am ashamed to be on the school committee.”

Mudge said the school committee received a decision from an arbitrator on June 26 that would save the district more than $1.3 million over two years. Later on the same day, the school committee agreed in executive session to proceed with privatizing school custodial services.

“We had all received a copy of arbitrators award and we had a meeting that night,” he said. “Nobody really looked at it and the superintendent said he disagreed with it.”

Mudge walked out of that meeting, he said, because he didn’t think the school committee followed open meetings rules when it went into executive session. He later filed a complaint with the Attorney General.

“My issue is not necessarily the result, it’s the process,” he said.

The school committee ultimately signed a contract with the out-of-state company rather than agree to the terms laid out by the arbitrator.

School Committee Chair Kim Page indicated in a reply email to Mudge that she does not think he has the votes to pass his motion at Tuesday’s meeting.

“Poll the committee all you want Bill,” she wrote in reply to his email. “If you get even 3 votes to attend your meeting, I would be shocked.”

Here’s Mudge’s entire email:

I am writing you because I am concerned about the subject notice posted on the NKSD website which states “While School Committee labor negotiations continue with the NK Educational Support Professionals, there remains a possibility that this union may strike on Tuesday and force the closure of school. Right now both sides continue to meet, and we are doing all we can to avert a work stoppage, but I am writing to you to give you some advance notice to make contingency plans for your children’s care should the NKESP go forward with a strike.”

First, as a member of the school committee, I (and I believe Mrs. Benson) am unaware of any continuing labor negotiations currently ongoing with the NK Educational Support Professionals. Regardless, to the best of my knowledge, on June 26, 2012 NKESP union officials did provide additional contract concessions to Mary Ann Carroll, attorney for the North Kingstown School Committee’s (NKSC), with the understanding that Attorney Carroll would present the new proposal to the NKSC that evening. It is also my understanding, Attorney Carroll attempted to present the unions proposal to the school committee, however it was rejected out of hand by committee members Welch, Page, Avanzato and Boscardin.

Second, I am also unaware of any ongoing negotiations with ESP union officials since March 13, 2012, when at that time a motion was made by Lynda Avanzato and seconded by John Boscardin to dissolve the Negotiations Sub-Committee and subsequently passed by a 4 to 1 vote. Mrs. Avanzato’s and Mr. Welch’s rationale to dissolve the committee was predicated on their assertion that when the committee moves into arbitration, it’s the entire committee that becomes involved. Thus, any interface or discussion with union officials by a School Committee Member or members and Superintendent Auger were not authorized and therefore not representative of the School Committee. Additionally, Attorney Carroll has not been authorized to represent the school committee in any matters concerning union negotiations.

Third, since the June 26, 2012 school committee meeting I have attempted on several occasions, to poll all NKSC members to hold a special or emergency school committee meeting to address the unions latest proposal; however, Chairperson Page has continually rejected each of my requests, in violation of our own school committee policy. Because of Chairperson Page’s in transient’s and unwillingness to bargain in good faith, on August 12, 2012, I filed several Open Meetings Act complaints with the Atty. Gen.’s office regarding the procedural conduct of the June 26 meeting and because the school committee voted, in essence, to rejected the unions new proposal in violation of the OMA.

Fourth, I would like to point out that on the evening of June 25, 2012, during executive session, and after only a 20 minute discussion of an arbitrator’s 25 page decision and award which had just been received and included $621,000 and $687,000 of budget savings in FY13 and FY14 respectively, the school committee voted to fire the janitorial staff. Furthermore the decision was predicated and accepted “without question” on Superintendent Auger’s assertion that the amount of savings cited by the arbitrator was incorrect and would not be realized, despite the fact that the arbitrator’s written statement that “most of the values were provided by the school committee as part of its evidence in this case.” I feel the S/C owed its valued long time employees the professional courtesy to at least validate the accuracy and/or disparity between the arbitrators and Dr. Auger’s calculated savings.

As outlined above, I have done everything possible since February, when I was first appointed to the now defunct negotiations committee, to ensure that School Committee and the ESP union were bargaining in good faith. Unfortunately, I believe that there has been complete breakdown in the negotiation process, absence of School Committee leadership and that school committee erred, when it failed to consider the union’s proposal presented to Attorney Carroll on June 26, 2012. As such, and in regard to the rumored statement there “will be a work stoppage” resulting in school closure, I respectfully request that all union employees continue to work their normal work day schedules until the S/C meets this Tuesday. In turn, I give you my word of honor that at the Tuesday night’s meeting I will request a vote of the entire S/C to hold a special/open meeting to consider the unions June 26, 2012 proposal. I believe this is a win, win proposal for both parties and the parents and children of our community, even if only for a day.