Voters making decisions based on the TOC's information are egregiously ill-served

To the Editor:

In comments to a local newspaper (The Patent Trader, June 8 issue) Richard Hallinan of the Taxpayers Oversight Committee (TOC) acknowledges that Bedford Central's public schools will be in trouble if the proposed budget fails to pass and the contingency budget his group advocates is adopted. Programs will have to be cut - he readily concedes - but that's only because the board of education has been allowing teachers' salaries to grow at a rate far apace of inflation. The acknowledgment of the pain the TOC is willing to inflict on our schoolchildren is refreshingly candid, although its evaluation of the teacher contract is considerably less so.

Bedford Central teachers will receive an increase of 3.2 percent in the coming year, which is indeed slightly above this year's rate of inflation. What Mr. Hallinan neglects to mention is that this increase is part of a multi-year package that allowed for zero percent for the first year, 3.2 percent for the second, 3.2 percent for the third and 3.3 percent for the fourth, for a total increase of 9.7 percent over four years. Every labor negotiator worth his or her salt will tell you that in such packages it is always best for the employer to defer the increases as late in the cycle as possible. This is precisely to avoid the compounding effect on the budget Mr. Hallinan and the TOC purportedly seek to prevent. From this perspective, the first year freeze negotiated by Bedford Central's Board of Education offers a classical model of prudence and of fiscal shrewdness on the part of the board and of moderation on the part of the teachers' union.

Another important factor Mr. Hallinan overlooks is that multi-year salary contracts involve considerable risks for both negotiating parties. Had this year's rate of inflation shot up to six or seven percent, for example, Bedford Central's teachers would have come to rue the amount they negotiated in 1998. Because of this, the best labor contracts are those that put neither the employer not the employee at a disproportionate risk from future variations on the rate of inflation. Again, from this perspective, Bedford Central's current contract is moderate and eminently fair - if anything, a good deal for the administration when contrasted with the 5.1 percent increase in salaries reported by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics for 1998.

There are, of course, other issues, such as the fact that a school district cannot unilaterally slash the salaries it offers the teachers it needs to hire, at least if-it hopes to attract and retain the best for its students. Bedford Central is competitive in the salaries it offers and needs to remain competitive or it will lose the edge in the labor market. It is strictly a question of supply and demand. The rate of inflation, while not irrelevant, is not the magical yardstick the TOC says it is when trying to evaluate whether the contract a school district has signed with its teachers is a thrifty or a profligate one.

These are perhaps boring and complex issues, but they are certainly not beyond the average voter's comprehension when he or she evaluates the teacher contract and its impact on the budget, One would expect that a group that purports to
protect taxpayers would use its considerable means and energies to ensure that the information it pro-
vides to the public is complete, well-reasoned, and soberly presented. On this account, however, the TOC's widely disseminated literature is so sloppy, biased and incomplete that it obfuscates rather than illuminates the issues it claims to address. Voters
making decisions based on the TOC's information alone are egregiously ill-served.

A group that advocates inflicting considerable pain upon schoolchildren as a way to pass judgment on their teachers' salaries owes the community better than glib indictments of the school board's negotiating ability. Mr. Hallinan and the TOC are entitled to their opinions. What this taxpayer and many others resent is the enormous harm that might be caused by their simplifications.

Rosa Portell