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Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Gazette Letter: Teachers garner spoils of “maintenance of effort”
It was a little disheartening, but not surprising, to see a half-page, full color ad in the Gazette of March 28, paid for by the teachers unions, saluting all [see comment below on this blog] our Montgomery County delegates as champions of public education. It appears that our teachers unions define champions of education as those who support the maintenance of effort law. This law makes education so sacrosanct that the funding of every other county service can be jeopardized to fully fund education. Taxpayers should not be fooled. “Maintenance of effort” is a misnomer. It is, in effect, a "maintenance of emolument" law...
House vote: http://mlis.state.md.us/2012rs/votes/house/0589.htm Senate vote: http://mlis.state.md.us/2012rs/votes/senate/0560.htm
Take a look at which of your elected representatives voted for this massive shift of political power away from voters, away from counties, to unelected bureaucrats in Annapolis. This law rejects local decisions about budget priorities. It imposes the judgement of teachers unions that public school employees are more important than any other public employees, so police and firefighters should now consider themselves second class workers. It imposes a fiscal straightjacket that will become more and more uncomfortable. You may want to tell your elected representatives how you feel about this.
But this is exactly what the voters wanted according to at least one Delegate from District 16 who wrote to me that the "yes" vote would best represent the beliefs of the majority of District 16.
Thanks for the links, Mr. Stewart. I would add however that this does not take power away from the voters. It was the voters who elected these delegates. In the primary on April 3rd, only ~20% of the registered voters bothered to vote. I spoke to two people involved in the local Democratic Party and they both told me it 'didn't matter' because no one was really running in the Democratic Primary. I pointed out that the Board of Education race was critical, and the BOE controls over half of the county's entire budget, over $2.1BILLION. The Democratic party needs to get its act together and show people they want voters. Right now they don't give a damn as long as they maintain and own this one-party county. And, not to let the Republicans off, they need to get it together and show the voters they have the same interests as the majority of the people in this county do. Otherwise they will stay in the margins.
House vote: http://mlis.state.md.us/2012rs/votes/house/0589.htm
ReplyDeleteSenate vote: http://mlis.state.md.us/2012rs/votes/senate/0560.htm
Take a look at which of your elected representatives voted for this massive shift of political power away from voters, away from counties, to unelected bureaucrats in Annapolis. This law rejects local decisions about budget priorities. It imposes the judgement of teachers unions that public school employees are more important than any other public employees, so police and firefighters should now consider themselves second class workers. It imposes a fiscal straightjacket that will become more and more uncomfortable. You may want to tell your elected representatives how you feel about this.
But this is exactly what the voters wanted according to at least one Delegate from District 16 who wrote to me that the "yes" vote would best represent the beliefs of the majority of District 16.
DeleteD.Wilson
Thanks for the links, Mr. Stewart. I would add however that this does not take power away from the voters. It was the voters who elected these delegates. In the primary on April 3rd, only ~20% of the registered voters bothered to vote. I spoke to two people involved in the local Democratic Party and they both told me it 'didn't matter' because no one was really running in the Democratic Primary. I pointed out that the Board of Education race was critical, and the BOE controls over half of the county's entire budget, over $2.1BILLION. The Democratic party needs to get its act together and show people they want voters. Right now they don't give a damn as long as they maintain and own this one-party county. And, not to let the Republicans off, they need to get it together and show the voters they have the same interests as the majority of the people in this county do. Otherwise they will stay in the margins.
ReplyDeleteMs. Fidler,
ReplyDeleteThis ad did not salute "all" Montgomery County legislators.
Senator Brian Frosh was not pictured in the ad.
http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/mdmanual/05sen/html/msa12167.html