The leaders of several Marblehead employee unions say they will “stand out and stand together ahead of Town Meeting on May 6 to support fully funded budgets and fair contracts for all our town departments.” The unions — representing educators, police, firefighters and others — plan to rally outside Veterans Middle School Monday starting at 6 p.m. Town Meeting begins there at 7 p.m.
The unions are in collective bargaining, with contracts expiring this summer. In a joint letter to the editor sent on Friday morning, union leaders wrote:
“As municipal employees responsible for teaching Marblehead’s children, maintaining Marblehead’s roads and infrastructure, conducting Marblehead’s town business and keeping Marblehead’s residents safe and secure, we are concerned that a proposed town budget based on deep service cuts will have a lasting, negative impact on the community.”
The town’s proposed FY2025 budget includes $4.2 million in cuts, split between the town and the school.
What does fully funded mean?
When asked by the Current what “fully funded” means to teachers, Marblehead Education Association Co-President Jonathan Heller wrote, “At this juncture, fully funded means providing level services, and stopping cuts after two successive years of harmful reductions. We must protect all existing staff and services. Then stakeholders — including educators and families — need to have a strategic plan for building up the school budget to meet all of the academic, social and emotional needs of students. This means having reasonable class sizes and proper staffing levels for all student-facing positions, including counselors, librarians, nurses, paraeducators and teachers.”
Terry Tauro, who leads the town’s municipal employees union, defines fully funded this way: “Fully funded means having the equipment, software and support staff needed to complete our work. Stop the practice of eliminating higher-salary positions and dump the work onto the clerks, teachers and the workers.”
Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer told the Current that messaging like this is common during contract negotiation years. He defended the budget.
“The town budget being presented provides a responsible approach balancing our financial constraints with maintaining our services to the community. In the balanced budget being presented to Town Meeting, we are utilizing our available reserves to the extent practicable and maximizing the tax revenues currently available to avoid deep service cuts and layoffs.”
The letter is signed by the leaders of the Marblehead Education Association, Marblehead Municipal Employees Union Local 1776, Marblehead Municipal Light Department Local 81214, Marblehead Firefighters IAFF Local 2043, Marblehead Police Union MASS COP Local 437, and the Retired State, County and Municipal Employees Association.
‘Irresponsible and unnecessary’
The union leaders call proposed budget cuts “irresponsible and unnecessary.”
“We have already seen the harm that can arise when our schools are not adequately staffed, putting students and staff at risk,” their letter reads. “Without a significant course correction, our public schools are in danger of significant and substantial decline. What other risks do we take when police, fire and other town-side departments are also asked year after year to do more with less? Vital resident services are delayed, Marblehead becomes less safe and our municipal employees, firefighters and police officers are burned out from the one-two punch of being underpaid and overworked. Marblehead can do better.”
‘Ample reserve funds’
The letter says the town has ample reserve funds and the ability to raise revenue.
“While reserve funds are necessary for ‘rainy days,’ it’s certainly ‘raining’ when town officials are proposing drastic cuts to municipal staff and services,” it reads.
Kezer said it’s important that the town not spend down those reserves.
“…we are protecting our reserves to maintain the favorable bond rating Marblehead enjoys to keep future capital costs down,” he said. “We are also proposing expanding some non-property tax revenues to help meet our future funding needs to minimize future tax overrides to maintain our services.”
Editor Leigh Blander is an experienced TV, radio and print journalist.
