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Wikipedia:Paid sick days, sometimes referred to as sick leave, guarantees workers time off to stay home when they are sick without losing pay or their jobs. Some paid sick days policies also allow paid sick time to be used to care for sick family members, to attend doctor or medical appointments or to address health and safety needs related to domestic violence or sexual assault. Nearly half of workers in the private sector (48 percent) do not have a single paid sick day to recover from illness or to care for a sick family member. As a result, they face difficult choices: lose a day's pay or even their jobs, or go to work sick and risk infecting coworkers and customers. Parents who lack paid sick days are often forced to choose between their jobs and their sick children. Nearly half (49 percent) of working mothers miss work when a child contracts a common illness. Three in four low-wage workers (79 percent) do not have a single paid sick day. These workers are least able to afford to take unpaid time off or risk losing their jobs.
So does this mean all town employees can now request time off in advance and charge it to sick leave?
ReplyDeleteCongrats to A.R. for winning the tax-payer lottery!
ReplyDeleteSchool staff would need to furnish a Drs note if they took this many "sick" days.
ReplyDeleteThe contract is enough to make me sick!
This is peanuts compared to the salary of the
ReplyDeletepresident of higher education and the chancellor of the university. What about all the university athletic coaches? Who's paying for all this? Let's bring some sanity back.
Snark aside, did he break the law claiming sick days that haven't happened yet?
ReplyDeleteNah, his contract does not define "sick leave."
ReplyDeleteTo Anon 12:26
ReplyDeleteI have no idea if it's illegal, it's incredibly unethical.
And, the next time a kid cheats in school he can just defend himself by pointing out that that's how the super rolls.
Just curious, how are these numbers in comparison to other super's salary packages? I'm asking honestly as I don't know if this is over the top, or comparable to others. But it does seem a little high, this is the first super position he has held correct?
ReplyDeleteDaler
Noho Super: $113,568, with no extras listed in the budget e.g., our guy's $15k to live in Miami.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the Noho Super has more experience.
BTW, the Noho Super makes $15-16k LESS a year than our HS principal.
ReplyDeleteEver wonder how we got so broke?
And this is while he's still trying to make a good first impression?
ReplyDeleteWhew!
Too late
ReplyDeleteLarry, I don't always agree with you BUT I gotta love ya!!! This is great.
ReplyDeleteso why release this when you know the supt is not in town and can't respond to questions?
ReplyDeleteNo matter where you are on vacation these days you can get Internet.
ReplyDeleteHell, for all I know you are him responding.
At my town job in amherst, if you know you are having a medical procedure done in advance, you can put in for a "scheduled" sick day. That way your employer knows in advance that there is a medical associated leave coming up, which is covered under sick leave. We dont know the Super's medical needs and for all we know this could be a legit leave. Investigate before posting.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I guess I should have called him up and asked why are you taking all this sick leave in advance and it's always contiguous with weekends.
ReplyDeleteActually somebody on the School Committee should have asked him that earlier this week when he distributed the memo--thus making it a Public Document. Eh?
[... ] is one relavant source on this topic[...]
ReplyDeleteWell, slam.
ReplyDelete180 days. The superintendent should be at work when school is in session. He can time off in July, August, Christmas break, Feb break and April break.
ReplyDeleteShame on the school committee for this contract.
6:39am - please note it was the CURRENT school committee, I believe.
ReplyDeleteRegional School Committee.
ReplyDeleteAnd I believe Steve Rivkin and Irv Rhodes had not yet been elected to Amherst SC.
Remember Elaine Brighty had that priceless comment regarding Jere Hochman calling him, "a rare event."
maybe not so rare....
ReplyDeleteindeed.
Maybe the School Committee members aren't the right people to be negotiating these contracts. They're well-meaning community citizens, not contract negotiators.
ReplyDeleteGod knows the district spends a ton on legal services annually, maybe they should think about bringing in a (cutthroat) negotiator.
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to be cutthroat, just don't give away the store.
ReplyDeleteAnd you wonder why anybody who is at all competent & capable - and who knows the deal with the Amherst know-it-all culture - tends to stay away from the public service type jobs that put you in the spotlight in this town. You guys seem to forget pretty quickly any GOOD that has been done by folks like Andy Churchill, Baer T., Elaine Brighty et al. These folks put in a LOT of time, effort, and sweat equity to try to make our town better, stronger, and more solvent and all that you armchair QB's can do is lob rotten tomatoes from the comfy sidelines and try to find the negative in everything that is said or done by these folks. Lighten up or take the lead yourself...this peanut gallery stuff solves nothing. Nothing.
ReplyDeleteBy the way...I'm NOT including this new Super in my previous post - he's too new, and too unproven, to defend re; his contract, etc. It's just that this thread shows the same piling on, shark-feeding frenzy that has been on display in previous posts and it got me to thinking: here we go again.
ReplyDeleteYeah Old Timer, I guess if I had not been in venerable Amherst Town Meeting since 1991 or on the Amherst Redevelopment Authority since 1996 (mostly Governor appointed) you might just have a point there.
ReplyDeleteLarry, you are fantastic. Blogging really is the new journalism.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't the newspapers do investigations like this?
Terry Franklin
Thanks Terry.
ReplyDeleteThe Gazette eventually gets around to it...eventually.
To the Old Timer from one who worked for the Town when Al Torrey, Frank Hart and Stan Ziomek ran the show, someone like A-Rod would never have been hired, let alone be allowed to flaunt his authority like some bull in a china shop.
ReplyDeleteIs that piling on? Or basic truth.
Speaking of A-Rod, there was a thread back in December on CS blog re. the hiring of CORE personnel to do an evaluation of Amherst schools. Something about members of the CORE staff/founders receiving degrees from the same Florida schools as A-Rod, during the same period. Never responded to, dropped like a ... Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteName that town Amherst:
ReplyDelete1. Create a high salary environment...
2. Use those elevated salaries as (among other things, but most importantly) cover so when you
3. Give ~yourself~ and/or "certain" others their REALLY HIGH salaries, it doesn't look so obvious...
Understand Amherst?
Blending into ~the crowd~ is one way to mask the rough, obvious edges of corruption. Ever wonder how those high salaries got to be so high?
And they've been taking your tax dollars all along. Driving your town into the ground for their own benefit.
But guess what? They want more.
No more vipers, no more snakes because enough is enough is
enough...
Now.
We have a clairvoyant superintendent.
ReplyDeleteHe knows when he is going to be sick.
And what I wonder is what will happen when parents start doing the same thing? When they know when their kids will be sick....
And why can't any employee required to turn in a MD note grieve that on a disparate treatment basis?
I say: we ought to have hired the white guy - who also was more qualified. Gotta love affirmative retribution....
Yes, this job involves a lot of hours, but whose job does not. I'm in the camp of public service compensation being in parity with income and tax-base of a community being served. If we find ourselves running deficits as a region, and trying to fund services with median salaries of $55,325 (http://www.city-data.com/city/Amherst-Massachusetts.html) then we should be looking at a starting point for the salary along these lines, and adding merit/experience/education accordingly. Further, this total should include any housing allowance (which IS NOT job related like travel costs). We could hire two front-line teachers for the glut in this package and really do some good.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, how of of the gross is benefits (medical, pension, etc.)?
I believe the $173-K is salary/pay.
ReplyDeleteThen there are other additional associated costs like health insurance, pension, etc, which I believe at up to at least another 25%.
I have requested under Public Documents from their HR department a copy of the "School Committee Benefits Policy for Principals" and a copy of their "sick leave" policy.
Just curious...who is/was the last public official that you actually LIKED, as in you approved of the job that they've done. I'm not including police/fire in this question - because we all know about THAT love affair that you have - but rather I'm curious about any other Town/School employees (Town Manager, Dept. Heads, Supt's, etc.). Do any come to mind?
ReplyDeleteDamn,for an old dude, you are pretty naive.
ReplyDeleteIf I point out the active department heads--or higher ups I prefer to call them--that I like and get along with just great (and how do you think I get all the inside information?) that would be the KISS OF DEATH.
I don't know about Larry and Amherst, but I can speak to myself and UMass -- there actually ARE people who quietly do their jobs and quietly boil in silent fury at what others - at similar pay grades - aren't doing.
ReplyDeleteI always found them to be really good sources of information - and it does help that I never really could remember who told me what. And leaking stuff out to someone who will reveal it is a way that any complex organization polices itself...
I can't speak for Larry but I know that there is a lot of stuff that I have never revealed....
"I have requested under Public Documents from their HR department a copy of the "School Committee Benefits Policy for Principals" and a copy of their "sick leave" policy."
ReplyDeleteWatch out for Mazur, Larry...
She's one of them.
this blog is getting more and more paranoid. I liked it better when it was just biting.
ReplyDeleteEd,
ReplyDeleteDo reveal. Don't hold back. I had always suspected you were the one doing his job.