Tim Collins Responds to Control Board Chariman in Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor:

This is in response to remarks made by Alan LeBovidge, chairman of Governor Romney’s Finance Control Board, in the December 7, 2004 article entitled, “Cutting school funds defended.”

The article reads, “LeBovidge said he doesn’t know yet if the control board will end a wage freeze for school employees. The school district’s budget includes $6.6 million to pay the step raises of School Department employees for this year and last year should the wage freeze be lifted. ‘Everybody wants it,’ he said. ‘I understand that. But you have to share the pain.’ ” Once again, Mr. LeBovidge and his colleagues from Boston on the Springfield Control Board have displayed their ignorance of, and insensitivity to, the employees and the children in the Springfield Public Schools.

The school department employees have had more than their fair share of the pain over the last three years--no raises, denied pay for earning higher education degrees, step raises frozen, increases in health insurance cost, larger class sizes and some have taken furloughs. LeBovidge’s decision to grant the city a waiver of nearly one million dollars of its minimum contribution to the schools by law is simply indefensible.

The employees did not cause this problem but have lived with the pain of having their income decreased while their expenses increased over the last three years. The children in the Springfield Public Schools are certainly not responsible for the cities financial problems and they will feel the pain of Governor Romney’s out-of-control board for years to come.

Sincerely,

Timothy T. Collins
President