Town of Braintree

The newspaper reports our teachers have reached a tentative pact with the School Committee (& Selectman Chairman Kokoros who sat on the Town's negotiating for these stalled talks)and a 10% raise over the next four school years is the result is reported?
Further, some tweaking of longevity for longer term teachers will get a hike as well.
I am a retiree of the Braintree government, but I sincerely say this to that - I hope and pray that we are not going to separate one employee group with all others again. Police, Fire, HIghway, Library, Water & Sewer, Managers, Parks, School Maintenance, etc. I understand $550 equals a 1% pay raise for our entire workforce in town. If everyone got 10% over next 4 years, well that computes to $5.5million more NEW dollars. Can Braintree afford this? I hope the TOWN is smart enough not to further widen the gap between what TEACHERS get and what everyone else gets. Teachers got 1% cumatively more in a raise the last three year contract than everyone else, so this time around, WAR will result for sure. Teachers are for sure very necessary and valued, but no more than other equally productive workers in their own domains.

By Retiree

If Loco Koko is involved

let's hope it is only 10%.

I had thought that the teachers could have been leaders and signed a one year at 0%, and a three year at 3/3and 3.

I used to feel that since we do not have the money, we cannot afford raises. However, the only reason we do not have the moeny is that the significant number of non voting parents do not Vote.

The fact of the matter is, our Town employees need to be fairly compensated and ''we do not have the moeny'' will no longer cut it.

Kramer -- be a leader, go for the long haul and not just a lousy point for this year.

By RepVoter

Step Raises

I don't think it accurate to report that our teachers got a 3.3 over the last three years without further detail.
Albeit the teachers received a 3.3 in contractual raises they also received yearly step-raises. These step-raises also come from the town's budget, these step-raises also increase a teacher's salary. Thus, the step-raises received should also be added into the overall salary increase per year and then averaged in the overall increase for the past 3 years. Before you can accurately report the percentage of increase for any employee's salary, per year, you need to know both the percentage of their step-increase and the percentage of the current contract increase. Taking that into consideration, if what Retiree said is correct, and salaries will increase $5.5m over the next 4 yrs., I think that figure would have to be revisited to account for the additional increases due to step-raises.

By money matters

A Parent & Voter

Did you know that two negatives makes a positive? I object to your statement. Frankly, I know alot of parents that do indeed vote. Do not put the blame on them. How about the Senior Citizens and the South Braintree Board of Trade that campaign against any increase to taxes, debt exclusion, etc. They are the ones that are keeping the money out of the town's pockets. And by the way, is it not the parents who are working that have the disposable income to patronize the businesses in South Braintree? And isn't it true that good schools keep people in town or moving into town, thereby keeping our tax rates down and values of real estate up? Bad schools mean people will move out of town. So don't blame the parents who are voters. Blame the South Braintree Board of Trade and senior citizens who campaign and vote against it even though it could mean a decline eventually in real estate values, etc. They can't see the big picture.