Partial Truths - The Root of the Problem

Having both observed and participated in the "Recess for Citizen Presentations" segment of school board meetings for some time now, here are our observations:

1. If you praise the board or the district, they'll beam at you and give you extra time to speak.


2. If you are raising a concern or discussing something on which the board didn't quite get an "A" for effort, they time you, and prompt you to hurry up. While you speak they either glower at you or stare off as if they are seriously contemplating your issue, while actually filtering you out like white noise.


3. If you say something nice, your comments will be printed in full in the meeting minutes.


4. If you address a real concern, like say, you point out flaws in the budget process, then the minutes will reflect only that "Joe Blow spoke about the budget".


5. Last, but, most important. If you speak about something which casts aspersions on the board or their actions, one or more board members --or Tim Culver--will rebut your statements with one or more partial truths that, taken as complete fact, appear to cut your presentation off at the knees. Of course, you NEVER get a chance to respond to their rebuttal. Heaven forbid that the school board actually engage the public in dialog.

The rules of the school board are quite simple: "Speak only when spoken to" and "The school board shall always have the last word".

Let's look at a prime example of partial truths in rebuttal comments board member Caren Diedrich made at the Monday August 11 school board meeting in response to comments about the sizable administration raises relative to those of Local 60 support staff.

Rick Mealy pointed out that while the Local 60 folks got 3.25% raises, Administrative Support staff got 3.6% and Dr. Culver got 3.7%. In addition, they were proposing a $5.00 per hour raise for the Business Services Manager position, which is currently paid over $30.00 per hour. He went on to point out that the Local 60 contracts included a "poison pill"provision that if health insurance costs rise by 10% or more, their raises would drop to 2.75%. That provision was NOT put into either the Admin Support or Tim Culver's contracts.

Partial Truth #1

Caren Diedrich wanted to make it clear that the Local 60 folks were a pleasure to work with and that the Local 60 folks were very happy with the agreement.

Reality Bites
Mealy asked the sequence of contract negotiations. Of course, we learn that the negotiations were simultaneous, and the Local 60 team was not aware when they reached their agreement that they ---the lowest paid employees--received the lowest raises. We wonder how happy the Local 60 people are now that they see what the other groups received.


Partial Truth #2
Caren Diedrich also wanted to clarify that the reason why the Local 60 people got a lower raise is that they weren't asked to pay more of their health insurance.

Reality Bites
On the surface, this sounds like a reasonable explanation---until you get the rest of the story. The local 60 folks are already paying at least TRIPLE what the other groups pay. for health insurance. In addition, Local 60 pays just under 15% of the cost of dental insurance, while the taxpayers foot 100% of the cost for the other groups. See the contract excerpts below.