FALLING STUDENT ENROLLMENT NUMBERS SINCE FISCAL YEAR 2012
Wachusett Regional School District (WRSD) student enrollment numbers have fallen every year since 2012. That year enrollment was 7472. Enrollment fell thereafter until it was 7010 in 2020 when the Chinese Communist Party Wuhan Virology Lab Coronavirus (CCP Virus) Pandemic was recognized. In the past year total enrollment has fallen precipitously, to 6586. SEE WRSD proposed FY 2022 Budget, graph, page 8– http://www.wrsdonline.net/finance/FY22BudgetBook.pdf
WRSD BUDGETS HAVE INCREASED $22 MILLION JUST SINCE FISCAL YEAR 2016
Those of you who still believe the teachers’ unions’ chants that school spending is “for the children” are soft as grapes. It’s NOT about the children. IT’S ALL ABOUT THEIR SALARIES, MEDICAL INSURANCE, PENSION BENEFITS, AND OTHER POST-EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS (OPEB). With WRSD student enrollment falling over the years you would expect to see incremental, permanent WRSD teacher and staff Reductions In Force (RIFs), right? Well, you would be wrong. That’s not how the ‘Education Establishment,’ feeding from the taxpayer-funded public mammary gland, works. Since FY 2012 WRSD has created and filled new positions. SEE, for example, this– https://www.telegram.com/news/20200214/wachusett-regional-school-budget-includes-7-new-positions Back in FY 2017 the shameless WRSD Committee and Administration created a laughable and notorious new position, that of “HVAC Supervisor” at $83,000/year to start. They don’t even pretend to have any regard for District taxpayers and don’t pretend to exercise spending restraint.
The FY 2016 WRSD budget was reduced to $83.3 after the intelligent voters in Paxton and Rutland rejected the whole hog then proposed by the tax-and-spend WRSD Committee and Administration. SEE https://www.thelandmark.com/article/20150702/NEWS/307029483 Smart voters/taxpayers know that WRSD budget increases, each based on the prior year’s figure, are COMPOUNDED in an ever upward spiral. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough intelligent voters in the other District Towns to keep a lid, consistently, on WRSD budgets. As of March 15, 2021, the proposed WRSD FY 2022 Budget was $105,053,279. SEE FY 22 Budget Book link, above. In a mere 6 Fiscal Years the WRSD Budgets have compounded and skyrocketed an outrageous $22 million! This has prompted new objections by Paxton and Rutland officials, and rightly so. SEE https://www.thelandmark.com/story/news/education/2021/03/08/paxton-balks-proposed-wrsd-budget/6823401002/
Let us hope that the intelligent voters in those Towns reject the WRSD FY 2022 Budget, thereby saving taxpayers in Sterling, Princeton, and Holden, whose sheep-like Town Meeting voters never fail to cut their own throats, some money.
Those interested in WRSD annual budgets and audits can view some here– https://www.wrsd.net/district_info/budget_and_finance
AFTER AN ALMOST ONE-YEAR PAID VACATION, THANKS TO THE CCP VIRUS PANDEMIC, FY 2022 WRSD EMPLOYEES’ SALARIES AND STIPENDS ARE SLATED TO INCREASE 2.64%, AND BENEFITS AND INSURANCE COSTS 11.43%
Thanks to the CCP Virus WRSD employees had an almost one-year paid vacation during which period your children had no classroom instruction. So one would think that unionized WRSD teachers and other WRSD employees would forego FY 2022 salary and stipend increases, right? WRONG! WRSD salaries and stipends are slated to increase 2.64%, and benefits and insurance costs 11.43%, for a combined increase of 4.37%. SEE FY Budget Book link, above, page 13.
This again prompts the question: Since student enrollment has decreased from 7472 in FY 2012 to 6586 now, why has the WRSD not RIFed teachers and staff, thereby curtailing salary and benefit increases to the benefit of District taxpayers? ANSWER: Because, as noted, the ‘Education Establishment’ doesn’t care about taxpayers.
EZEQUIEL AYALA, STERLING FINANCE COMMITTEE, AND MELISSA AYALA, WRSD COMMITTEE
Ezequiel Ayala, Sterling Finance Committee member, and Melissa Ayala, WRSD Committee member, share the same home here in Sterling. For those new to Sterling, the Select Board appoints Finance Committee members and the feckless Finance Committee, at Town Meeting, always recommends passage of the WRSD proposed budgets. It is readily apparent that these folks would not recognize a flagrant conflict of interest, such as this, if one reared up and bit ’em all in the A$$. This is but one example. You can just imagine how many conflicts of interest permeate the five WRSD member Towns.
14 JUNE STERLING ANNUAL TOWN MEETING
Do yourselves a favor and vote down the WRSD FY 2022 proposed budget at this year’s Sterling Annual Town Meeting.
J.G.
STERLING, MASSACHUSETTS, OVERWATCH 