What a good time for this posting.

I live in a small community in South Central Pennsylvania. A small town south of me has roughly 2,000-2,500 students enrolled. (for those interested, it is Littlestown, PA) The teachers just returned to class today after being on strike for 2 weeks. The reason for the strike? Healthcare…the district wants the teachers to foot more of the bill for their health care. Currently they pay 7%.

I’m a non-government worker in the IT industry. My current salary is not much more than their median salary (of 158 teachers in that district) of $47,331. Granted, I chose to work for a smaller company, I could do better in larger enterprise I’m sure, but I like where I live and don’t really want to move to a larger city. I did work for a large water utility, until it was purchased by a foreign company, I still paid the same level for my health care, just the price was a bit cheaper.

I currently pay 35% of my health care—with an $1,100 deductable. The finding of fact from the PA Labor Relations Board made these recommendations for Health care costs:

2005-2006: 8.5%
2006-2007: 9.0%
2007-2008 and 2008-2009: 10%.

Contributions are retroactive to July 1, 2005.

There were other issues, including spousal coverage, prescriptions, and Co-Pay (Doctor and ER).

There were other issues as well, including raises (amounting to a total of a 17% increase) over 4 years. To be asked to cover an additional 3% for healthcare out of this doesn’t seem to be a lot to ask, IMHO.

The economic impact of this goes beyond just a few teachers not being paid for a couple of weeks. There may even scholarships lost because of the cancelled football schedule. There were games missed by the Football team, where some seniors might have been looking for scholarships and now may have missed that chance. Many families had to find alternative day-care for younger children (I know some who did) which has a cost associated that wasn’t expected. The school system will have to make these days up at the end of the year. As a result, there may be families who have children in the distrct who now may have to cancel (and forfeit) deposits on their vacation housing everywhere from from the Jersey Shore to Myrtle Beach, because they have already scheduled their vacation for the week after school lets out.

I agree that teachers start early (a lot of times) and finish late. I concede that they have continuing ed responsibilities (as do I-certification exams that are required for my performance reviews-which is how I get a raise as opposed to a ‘guaranteed’ raise, regardless of my performance.

Taxpayers such as myself are the ones who foot the bill for these raises and healthcare. It’s not just the cost of raises either, but everything else too. I have a friend who just lamented to me that next year, about half of his mortgage will be taxes—both property and school. Granted, most of this is thanks to the Borough voting in favor of building a new school and remodeling another because of another issue involving zoning and single-family homes versus townhouses/apartments, but he still has to pay the taxes. We the Taxpayers are growing weary of the constant issues between school districts and the Teachers Unions; we’re tired of paying the bills for everything.

This community has a lot of retirees—many are considering moving, thereby reducing the tax base. The borough only has 7,000 Taxpayers in a community of 14,535 (2000 Census, I’m sure it’s at least 20% higher now). This is what happens to large metropolitan areas: you get single family homes turned into rental properties who pay proportinally smaller taxes per resident. This causes an ever-decreasing local tax base and suddently you’re bankrupt as a community. This all has to stop, but where do you draw the line?

Some of us have proposed getting ‘corporate sponserships’ for new schools or addtions—let Starbucks put their name on things in return for a few hundred grand back to the district annually. Stop making tax concessions to attract businesses- if all communities stop doing it, then it’s not an issue. Start putting revenue from gambling back into the schools; our lottery here already is used for Senior Health Care, why can’t the 61,000 slot machines we’re putting in have their revenues put into the coffers of the School districts? Add another one percent to the sales tax and put it BACK into the community it came from, rather than into the General Fund. Consolidate the several hundred school districts—there are 5 school districts in an area not much larger than my old home town—with about the same number of students. That town is all one district, why can’t we be here? Doing this would eliminate a number of administrative jobs and save money. If the State Education departments would actually THINK for a change, there is much that could be done.

For reference,here’s the link to the finding of fact in the Littlestown contract dispute:
http://www.dli.state.pa.us/landi/lib/landi/plrb/fact_finding/littlestown_area_school_district.pdf