What Other Admins Make

Maria Geryk, Sean Mangano, Mike Morris

Just so I'm not accused of being an Irish sexist bully picking on a female CEO by publishing Maria Geryk's five (5) year taxpayer funded contract, here's the other two contracts for recently promoted males. 

   Mike Morris ARPS Contract

Interestingly Mr. Morris gets three (3) years as Assistant Superintendent and Mr.Mangano only gets two (2) as Finance Director.  

   Sean Mangano Contract ARPS

Not that I would accuse anybody of sexism because of that.

Also have to wonder in his contract what is meant by "good cause" under the termination heading?  Since his predecessor Rob Detweiler simply disappeared, aka was fired, back in January for what may have been "good cause".

But since the Schools refuse to talk about it, we will never know.

Don't Feed The Trolls

2nd day in a row for above the fold headlines (both racism and Ebola)

In response to the first incident of racial vandalism aimed at black teacher Carolyn Gardner at Amherst Regional High School back in October last year, Amherst school officials simply covered it up.

It was only after an incident of student bullying that led to a Facebook "threat" and the dramatic closing of the High School that ongoing incidents of racism and bullying became public.   Although it didn't fit the Politically Correct agenda because it was black on white bullying.

So I have to wonder what would have happened at UMass if officials and the impacted students had simply cleaned up the graffiti and said nothing?  

Yes racism is intolerable, but then so is nuclear war.  One of those things where you don't get much of a public argument from an opposing view -- especially here in "Nuclear Free" Amherst.

Unless of course you're an anonymous troll.

Status Quo Budget

Four Boards:  Finance, Schools, Select Board and Library

When all was said and done, after a one hour rich-in-graphs presentation by Finance Director Sandy Pooler at tonight's Four Boards Meeting, the best guess for overall revenue increases next Fiscal Year  (FY16) is a comfortable 2.5%, or what Select Board Chair Aaron Hayden described as a "status quo budget."

 Current Fiscal Year Schools account for 52% of all spending

But with no increase in police or fire personnel, not an overly safe one.

Reserves of $9,152,345 this Fiscal Year best in ten years

Platinum Parachute?

Superintendent Maria Geryk, RSC members Lawrence O'Brien, Katherine Appy

So for those of you who honestly think the lap dog Regional School Committee and Union #26 would ever even remotely consider terminating the $168,000 per year contract of Amherst Pelham Regional School Superintendent Maria Geryk (and the free services of her husband Kurt) take a gander at her very recently signed five-year contract.

Although it was retroactive a full year (2013) it would still take a buyout of 3.5 years or $553,000 tax dollars.  Which, simply put, ain't gonna happen.

   Maria Geryk Schools Contract

What Are They Afraid Of?

Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in

   UMass Response: Open Meeting by Larry Kelley

Pretty quick response:

From: Manganaro, Kevin (AGO) (AGO) <kevin.manganaro@state.ma.us>
To: Larry Kelley <amherstac@aol.com>
Sent: Thu, Oct 16, 2014 9:52 am
Subject: RE: Open Meeting complaint Amherst and UMass (There they go again) 

Hello Mr. Kelley,
Thank you so much for your e-mail. If you wish to file a complaint, you may do so on the appropriate complaint form by following the procedure found here:
http://www.mass.gov/ago/docs/government/oml/ago-open-meeting- law-complaint-form.pdf
The complaint must first be filed with the public body no later than 30 days after an alleged violation, or, if the violation could not reasonably have been known at the time it occurred, then within 30 days of the date when it could have reasonably been discovered. The public body then has 14 business days to respond.
Thank you, Kevin
Kevin W. Manganaro Assistant Attorney General

#####
From: Larry Kelley
To: kevin.manganaro
Sent: Thu, Oct 16, 2014 10:05 am
Subject: Re: Open Meeting complaint Amherst and UMass

Kevin,
Since the meetings have not yet occurred and there is an opportunity to avoid such a violation by having your office determine that they should be open meetings (I assume UMass personnel would abide by such a decision) how does one go about finding a form to fill out for that kind of a determination?
Larry

Click to enlarge/read

They Had A Secret

Amherst Pelham Regional School Committee meeting last night

So I guess the way this works is the Regional School Committee and Union #26 directly oversees Superintendent Maria Geryk so that's why her salary/raise is an exact amount, and then they gave her a range for the new Assistant Superintendent, Mike Morris and the new Director of Finance Sean Mangano who she directly oversees.

Hey at least she didn't use the absolute top end with both those salaries. Although as I pointed out last month Mr. Morris @ $115, 000 gets a 15% raise and Mr. Mangano @ $95,000 a whopping 90% raise.  

Notice too there was no discussion whatsoever about job performance.  Like none.  Zero.

And since Tara Luce is an employee of the Public Schools that Maria Geryk oversees, she probably should have abstained. 

Interesting that rookie School Committee Chair Trevor Baptiste, who comes on like an opinionated bull in a dainty china closet, did abstain (for no apparent reason).

Click to enlarge/read

"Vetting Communities"

 Calvin Terrell dealing with unhappy customers

If you operate a service business and someone complains about your product you can either blame the customer and ignore the complaint, or think about what you may be doing wrong to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Smart businesses -- the ones that stay in business -- choose the latter.

Obviously Calvin Terrell, who sells racial harmony with a side order of anti-bullying, doesn't subscribe to that theory.  Perhaps why he worked at a Red Lobster rather than owning one.

Although he is smart enough not to bite the hand that feeds him, in this case Amherst College ($38,000 -- a lot of bread!).

But his way of dealing with the snowballing controversy over his graphic presentation to young children is to blame the Schools.  Which of course is -- like the anecdotes he uses in his presentations (Columbine, Lord Jeff's infected blankets) -- partially correct. 

Yes the Schools should have sent out the parental notifications warning parents about the graphic nature of Terrell's pitch.  But I'm also certain that if the Schools knew exactly how graphic that pitch was going to be they would never have allowed it in the first place.

To suggest that Amherst of all places is an atypical outlier and somehow overly sensitive about mature material is absurd.

If Terrell bothered to do his homework he would know that ARHS was the only high school in America to perform the decidedly R rated 'Vagina Monologues' in 2004, and five years before that created an international uproar by cancelling 'West Side Story' because of alleged "racism."

Both controversies brought on by overly empowered 17-year-old's.

The Schools have now gone into their usual mode of dealing with controversy.   Stick your head in the sand and wait till things blow over.

Worked well with the "Nut Ban" controversy.  Last night the Regional School Committee voted to set a policy that allows administration do pretty much what they want with nuts (insert joke here).

And a year from now that same diffident Regional School Committee will vote a policy allowing the administration to bring in any speaker they damn well please.

Well at least David Koresh is no longer available.