Town of Braintree

What can be done.

Town Meeting cannot amend the contract, as I understand the rules.

We can reduce the overall budget for the schools by whatever amount we choose by amendment. As such, we could reduce the budget equal to the amount of raises and it would force the School Committee to cut elsewhere to fund the contract THEY are obligated too.

That would be what I would hope to see at Town Meeting.

I also hope someone derails this lame plan to promote our Executive Secretary to Town Manager. Changing the name of the Selectmen's chief clerk does nothing to consolidate the powers scattered throughout the myriad boards and bodies in our community. An Executive Secretary, by any other name, still stinks.

answer

My understanding is that since proposition 2 1/2 was passed, the school department has complete control over how it spends its budget. Town meeting can only approve the total budget and has no control over how it is spent. The contract for the teachers is NOT subject to funding as the rest of the town union contracts are.

ITS

Ignorant posters such as this who dont know what they are talking about should keep there uneducated comments to themselves.
The only change needed in town meeting is the members should be provided the info packets as least four or five days before the meeting.
I can tell you where we get these people from...
Maybe you could get off your butt and get involved .. Then you could make these silly comments.

AS Allways
DMM

By DMM

Okay, I Think I've Got It

And I think 'frankreport' has the right idea. Unless there is something written within the new contract that reaps substantial rewards for the educational system then reduce the dept.'s appropriation by the amount of the raise. One million dollars for one year of salary increases for one dept. only; we have got to get real in this town. 34K residents, a fraction of who actually pay taxes and we are supposed to be able to afford a budget that supports 80% of its total for salaries? And growing. I've said it before and I'll say it again--damn that charter commission for not giving us a workable alternative. Frankreport you run for office, Mr. Clifford you run for office, Mr. Langill(sp.?), you run for office--because without faces that will perfect positive change for this town this town is going under. I promise to work exceptionally hard for any, and all, of your campaigns.

By money matters