{"id":839,"date":"2010-11-12T14:38:41","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T19:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unionvilletimes.com\/?p=839"},"modified":"2010-11-12T14:39:02","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T19:39:02","slug":"finding-the-middle-ground-making-gray-the-new-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=839","title":{"rendered":"Finding the middle ground: making gray the new black"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black and white mentality needs to give way to compromise, consensus<\/span>
\nBy Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span>
\nI was driving down Route 52 the other day and a passel of abandoned campaign signs prompted me to start thinking about what, if any, conclusions, one should draw from the recent election results and how it applies to life around here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Yes, it\u2019s obvious that people are angry, frustrated and more than a little scared \u2014 the last two, maybe three elections tell us that, even with their wildly differing outcomes. But there is likely a deeper story to be told \u2014 and we\u2019ve seen, and are seeing it play out right here in Unionville.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go back a few years, though, first. We can probably talk, argue, shout all day about the bond issue and the Unionville High School renovation. Twice, the voters said \u201cno.\u201d The board of education found a way to pay for it without a public referendum and\u00a0 for good or bad, the project is well under way. What was most striking was the lack of a middle course \u2014 a scaled down version that would have met most of the needs of the school, while offering some relief to taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The options were either black or white. Where was grey?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Last week's elections sent a message, just not the message seem to be suggesting.<\/p><\/div>\n

We\u2019re seeing much of the same issue with the current teachers\u2019 contract negotiations, which continue Monday, after a session last Wednesday. The district is offering an 1.8% over four years, while the teachers are asking for more than 4%.<\/p>\n

Both sides are pretty dug in \u2014 we have board members tossing out consumer price index information (which in this economic environment is somewhat deceptive in terms how much inflation the average Unionville family is facing; I know fuel, energy and health insurance are up and will be up much more than 2% \u2014 and that doesn\u2019t include my real estate taxes, the school portion of which went up 2.9%).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s safe to argue that in the real world \u2014 the one you and I live in \u2014 a 1.8% increase isn\u2019t likely to give teachers the same spending power, especially when they will be facing additional costs in health care insurance. You can spout CPI all you want, but like a lot of statistics, anyone who works, shops and feeds a family knows that prices continue to go up.<\/p>\n

And yes, we know that for average workers, salaries are down about 2%. Unionville\u2019s teachers, though, are hardly average \u2014 as a staff, they have helped to make Unionville arguably one of the top three school districts in the state, something that enhances all of our property values, not to mention quality of life and, oh yeah, the future of our kids.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s some validity to the argument that the school board wants BMW quality at Toyota pricing.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s an equally valid flip side to the argument:<\/p>\n

Should the teachers get the money they want, they can look forward to staff reductions \u2014 some fairly deep, and an arguably worse educational experience for students. Between the lower revenue from real estate tax and other sources, the debt service on the high school and the pension mess something will have to give. That something will be jobs, teaching jobs. Is it worth it to see some of our younger teachers taking orders for lattes at Starbucks, rather than teaching fourth grade because the union fought to the last man to get a great contract?<\/p>\n

From those standpoints, the board\u2019s offer doesn\u2019t seem fair, but then neither does the teachers\u2019 proposal.<\/p>\n

So whatever happened to fair? Well, on one side you have board members elected to cut spending after the renovation made so many voters angry. On the other side, you have the forces of organized labor, who see this a something of a test case (when you hear the words \u201cmodel contract\u201d bandied about, it\u2019s a sure sign of things headed downhill and rapidly).<\/p>\n

And frankly, there are downsides to either side getting exactly what it wants.<\/p>\n

As we\u2019ve seen, both locally and nationally, when one side wins without compromise, the other side comes back with a vengeance and we have this \u201cpolicy oscillation\u201d where we just get jerked around instead of making steady progress.<\/p>\n

The best answer is a meeting somewhere in the middle \u2014 where each side compromises and a some creative structures (smaller pay hikes up front, with larger ones in the final two years, as its highly likely the economy will continue to recover, and tax revenue should increase) are used to craft something everyone can live with, that could stop the back and forth.<\/p>\n

If nobody loses, everyone has a chance to win.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re pro-education, it means keeping all of these fabulous teachers. If you\u2019re fiscally conservative, it means avoiding a wave election that would rework the board into a less financially prudent mix, and likely mean a return to max tax hikes and spending policies that led to the high school renovation project.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying that it will be easy, but a moderate path here is the most sustainable.<\/p>\n

If this becomes about putting a scalp on the wall, whichever side emerges as the victor, then we all lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black and white mentality needs to give way to compromise, consensus By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com I was driving down Route 52 the other day and a passel of abandoned campaign signs prompted me to start thinking about what, if any, conclusions, one should draw from the recent election results and how it applies to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,7],"tags":[39,45,44,43,42,24],"class_list":["post-839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-featured","tag-chadds-ford","tag-negotiations","tag-school-board","tag-schools-2","tag-teachers-contract","tag-unionville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}