When private industry has to find areas to save money, it typically goes to "extras" in its budget. Those extras may be deemed by objective onlookers as frills — maybe a paid exercise program for employees, or special rewards for especially noteworthy service.
When the company runs out of those categories, it must begin to focus on more painful cuts. When the more painful cuts are all in place and they prove not to rectify the profit/loss picture, the most painful must be implemented: pay cuts or even layoffs.
Few companies in this region have given raises; many have cut pay and laid off workers. We're seeing it in government, too, as Gov. Paterson has targeted two local prisons for closure. The employees will be retained, he assures, although some may have to move. Some may have to move out of the North Country to work at correctional facilities downstate.
It has been a traumatic time for workers both in government and in business and industry as they try to protect their future as they face the loss of job security. The lucky ones have to deal only with pay cuts. The very lucky ones are granted the status quo. A few are even able to look forward to a rare raise.
A story out of San Francisco in Monday's Press-Republican talked about the grim realities facing school districts in every state in the union. Education is largely a state responsibility. States pay to educate their own, along with some federal funding. Localities have to provide the balance.
This year, many states are practically going broke trying to provide the services residents are used to. Those services are being cut. New York is especially vulnerable to fiscal disaster because Wall Street bonuses, which funded about 20 percent of the state budget in good times, are funding nothing now. This is a loss of billions of tax dollars.
As school districts confront the construction of their budgets for the coming school year, they don't know how much state aid they'll receive. Whatever they don't receive will have to either be forgone or financed through local taxes. All of the budget fat has already been excised. Future cuts will involve real hardships.
There is only one area to examine for cuts that won't devastate education programs: contract salaries. Teachers will continue to receive their raises, which were negotiated in happier circumstances. Those raises are guaranteed.
But this issue ought to be raised: If schools have to cut vital programs in order to make the payroll, why couldn't teachers do what people in private business have been doing all along — give up their raises, at least temporarily? They would still get their "step" increases.
Most teachers are making a very good living, by North Country standards. Teacher unions would gain great community gratitude if they'd volunteer to put off raises, at least for veteran teachers.
They deserve their raises, but they'd earn so much more by giving them up.
Opinion
February 16, 2010
EDITORIAL: Pay raises now extreme luxury
- Editorial
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Editorial: No raise for state legislators
This is not the year for state lawmakers to look for a raise.
- Editorial: A pair of aces among the Cards
- Editorial: Nurses, aides: a breed apart
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Editorial: No raise for state legislators
- Cheers and Jeers
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Cheers and Jeers: Feb. 13, 2012
CHEERS to Peru High School teacher Kathleen Roach and Cardinal Points.
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Cheers and Jeers: Feb. 13, 2012
- Letters to the Editor
- Speakout
- In My Opinion
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In My Opinion: E'town water, sewer essential
Elizabethtown has a history of economic ups and downs, Town Supervisor Margaret Bartley writes.
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In My Opinion: E'town water, sewer essential
