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July 2002
Lam's contract expires
Posted Wednesday, July 31, 2002
But the schools superintendent will continue to operate under the terms of her former pact while lawyers iron out the conditions of her new one.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- After deciding that she will not seek the schools superintendency in Portland, Ore., Schools Supt. Diana Lam has once again picked up the frenetic pace of the job she has held here in Providence for the last three years.
Her contract expires today and a new one is not yet in place, but the lack of an agreement does not appear to alarm anyone involved.
The School Board's vice president, Mary McClure, suggested that the contract might have been settled if school officials had not been preoccupied with the budget last week.
And the School Board's lawyer, Jeffrey W. Kasle, said he is heading into a series of schedule conflicts over the next 10 days with Lam's lawyer, Joseph Penza.
But Kasle said negotiations on Lam's contract are "proceeding between myself and her attorney."
"We have an understanding between the parties" that the expiring contract "remains in place until we are able to resolve the outstanding issues," Kasle said.
Despite the fact that Lam has announced her decision to stay in Providence, rumors have persisted that she has continued to look elsewhere.
"Those rumors are false," she said yesterday.
Lam said she has been preoccupied with finalizing the school budget -- which is lacking $2.5 million needed to pay teachers a retroactive pay increase -- and ensuring a smooth opening day of school in four weeks' time.
In an earlier interview, Lam acknowledged that the lack of a retirement plan has been an important factor in her contract deliberations.
Lam announced her decision to stay in Providence after businessman Richard Hoag said he is leading a fundraising drive in the private sector to create a retirement package for her.
Meanwhile, Kasle said the School Board is also addressing the retirement issue with Lam, although he declined to divulge details of those talks.
At a recent School Board meeting, former board member Juan Lopez accused Lam of pitting Providence and Portland against each other in a bidding war and selling out to the highest bidder.
Lam replied that Portland's offer was by far the more generous of the two.
Lam would not discuss the specifics of any financial offer Portland might have made, at least informally. She never consented to submit to the public interviews required of a finalist.
But Portland's previous superintendent had an annuity in his contract, and it is reasonable that the School Board would have considered terms at least as generous, if not more so, for Lam.
An annuity would have padded any pension Lam might have received through the Oregon state retirement system.
Because she is over 50, Lam would have qualified the first day on the job to eventually collect a pension.
Lam said that weighing the pros and cons of changing jobs had been "mentally exhausting. "
One attractive feature about Portland was an administrative structure and other mechanisms that were conducive to school improvement, Lam said, although its budget woes worked against it.
Portland will experience a net decrease in the amount of money available for public education in the coming school year.
Although the school budget in Providence has undergone significant reductions and is not yet settled, the worst-case scenario would still give the district more in state and local tax dollars than it had last year.
Lam pointed out, however, that hikes in wages and the cost of health benefits will eat up all the extra allocation.
"A plus in staying here is the amount of money the district has been able to raise" from private foundations, Lam said. "Even with the current budget problems, we know we will have money to spend on reform."
"The other piece that is really important is the whole issue of relationships," Lam said. "Many people in this district have worked so hard and are excited about the nature of the work."
"Providence has a great opportunity to be that school district to turn around," Lam said. "If we look at the past three years, plus what's coming, we get the sense of accomplishment."
She alluded to an increase in elementary school reading and writing scores last year and the beginnings of change in the city's high schools that she expects to improve scores at that level as well.
"Providence provides us with rich diversity" in the student body that "makes the work interesting and also makes the work more challenging," Lam said.
The negotiations that remain on Lam's contract are a matter of "dotting I's and crossing T's," according to School Board member Gene Burns, who attended a private briefing that Kasle gave the School Board Monday night.
Any retirement provision negotiated between Lam and the School Board would be separate from the arrangement the superintendent has with Hoag and other contributors.
Lam, who was 51 when she arrived in Providence in 1999, would have to work in Rhode Island 10 years before she qualifies for a pension, a scenario she admits is unlikely.
The General Assembly has granted only one exemption from the state retirement system to an out-of-state educator, Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, who was superintendent in Rochester, N.Y., before he came to Rhode Island.
The School Board wanted to obtain an exemption for Lam three years ago but the General Assembly failed to act.
Lam belongs to a relatively small group of schools superintendents who are "itinerants," moving from one state to another to jobs that challenge them, according to Bruce Hunter, a spokesman for the American Association of School Administrators.
In a recent telephone interview, Hunter put Lam's retirement situation -- or lack of it -- in a broader perspective.
"Our members would love to be able to move from state to state and school boards, by and large, would love to be able to pick anybody in America," Hunter said.
But most of the 13,400 superintendents who are members remain "captive to one state until they get their retirement in," he said.
He said the American Association of School Administrators was unsuccessful in a "big push" it made about 10 or 12 years ago to negotiate agreements with states that would make it easier for school administrators to move around the country.
"They said it would ruin their pension systems," Hunter said of the various state governments. Many of them have pension systems that are seriously underfunded, he said.
On the other hand, the state pension systems benefit from the turnover in the teaching force. Half of all new teachers leave after three years in the classroom, forfeiting the retirement contributions that have been made on their behalf by their employers, Hunter said.
Itinerants such as Lam "end up with no retirement," Hunter said.
"Their boards have to buy them annuities to make them whole," Hunter said.
Teachers' pay raise on agenda for council
Posted Monday, July 29, 2002
The 2-percent retroactive salary increase was cut from the city budget by the council's Finance Committee last week.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Over the weekend, the 2,200 members of the Providence Teachers Union were to receive a letter from their leadership urging them not to panic.
The idea of a teachers' strike in late next month has become more palpable since Tuesday, when the City Council Finance Committee cut a 2 percent, retroactive pay increase worth $2.5 million from the proposed city budget.
Phil DeCecco, president of the Providence Teachers Union, Schools Supt. Diana Lam, and City Council President John J. Lombardi all say they want to resolve any conflict between the union and the council before the situation escalates.
The issue will resurface tonight when the full council takes up the entire budget and determines a tax levy, but it is not clear how the council will act on the retroactive pay raise.
A number of scenarios are possible, at least on a tactical level.
While the City Council is legally required to set a tax levy by Wednesday, it has not always decided the budget by that deadline.
The council has the option of postponing decisions on the budget, which is merely a statement of the sources of revenue and plans for expenditures.
Even if the City Council endorses the Finance Committee's $2.5 million cut tonight, it must still take up the proposed three-year teachers' contract in August and hold a public hearing.
If the contract is ratified, the city will be legally bound to finance it, regardless of any other budget action.
Several years ago, when the city reached agreement with teachers in the middle of a fiscal year, the pact included raises that had not been originally budgeted, according to Mark V. Dunham, the school district's senior finance official. He said the budget was adjusted to pay for the raises.
Councilman Luis A. Aponte, D-Ward 10, one of the Finance Committee members who voted to cut the retroactive pay increase, explained his decision in an interview.
Aponte said he understands that the work-to-rule vote taken by the teachers' union for much of the last school year violated the terms of a one-year contract extension intended to bridge the gap between the agreement that expired last Aug. 31 and the new one.
Aponte said he understands that teachers were required to meet with students and parents as part of that contract extension and did not do so.
"How do you retroactively pay people for work not completed?" Aponte asked rhetorically.
He said he would have a difficult time voting for the contract under the circumstances.
DeCecco, the union chief, said the "meaning of work-to-rule is misinterpreted."
The tactic was a "modified work-to-rule" in which teachers honored voluntary professional commitments they made before the initial rejection of the contract in mid-October, DeCecco said.
After the vote, they refrained from making new commitments to engage in professional activities not specifically required in the contract, he said.
DeCecco said "no child, no student suffered in the city of Providence" as a result of the work-to-rule.
Last winter, however, a union newsletter credited work-to-rule with holding up the start of a new math program and preventing the administration from appointing a team of teachers to design a new international high school.
Since the School Board and the union reached a settlement in April, however, labor and management have made a concerted effort to minimize their differences -- at least in public.
In his weekend letter to teachers, DeCecco said he assured them that Lam, her administrative staff, the union, and the leadership of the School Board are "all working together to get the contract ratified before Aug. 26."
"Now is the time to start mending fences," DeCecco said.
Lam has echoed that sentiment, while School Board President Olga Noguera maintained Friday she didn't know the union's position.
Lombardi, the council president, who will become acting mayor in September when Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. is scheduled to be sentenced on a federal racketeering conviction, said he wants to "keep the lines of communication open."
Lombardi and Aponte continued to express the hope that the union might agree to set aside the retroactive pay increase, even after a top union official indicated that the membership would be more likely to vote to strike than to reopen negotiations.
Since the Finance Committee's vote on Tuesday, Lombardi has been inundated by calls from teachers and school administrators, who also stand to lose a retroactive pay increase.
The calls all had the same theme: if the full council fails to pass the retroactive pay raise, it will be anti-education, anti-children, and anti-union.
But Lombardi and Aponte adamantly reject any suggestion that the Finance Committee vote against the retroactive raise was motivated by retribution.
One problem was that the Cianci administration was "otherwise occupied" with Cianci's trial and did not get heavily involved in negotiating the contract, said Councilwoman Rita M. Williams, D-Ward 2.
But neither Lombardi nor Aponte excused the Cianci administration for what they said were lapses in communication.
Aponte said, "one assumes the administration was aware of the budgetary implications" of negotiations with the teachers, but no one gave the council advance warning.
And he chided the school administration for the way it has gone about its budget presentation, with its failure to submit realistic figures until the last 10 days.
Every year, school officials craft a budget proposal that they say reflects a true statement of the needs of the students -- even if it falls short on revenue -- in the hopes that the state or the city will help make up the difference.
But that posture puts the council in the uncomfortable position of being "the bad guys," as the chairman of the Finance Committee, Councilman Kevin Jackson, put it recently.
Aponte said that when the Finance Committee asked the school department for "real figures" that would close a $14.5 million deficit, it got anything but that.
Rather, it was asked to go along with unrealistic ideas, such as eliminating varsity athletics and cutting five days from the school year.
In the end, Cianci's finance director, Alex Prignano, offered the schools $6 million of a projected $8 million surplus.
At the same time, Dunham, the schools' fiscal chief, and the Finance Committee's internal auditor, James Lombardi, sharpened their pencils on other cuts, including the $2.5 million for the retroactive pay increase.
The bottom line budget for the schools, originally proposed at more than $285 million, now stands at $268 million, unless the full council decides to change it tonight or later.
School year hangs in balance as council weighs pay option
Posted Thursday, July 25, 2002
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- While there is some sentiment on the City Council that teachers do not deserve retroactive pay for a school year in which they practiced work-to-rule, it is not clear that the full council is prepared to hold up the approval of a new teachers' contract for that reason, City Council President John J. Lombardi said yesterday.
A key official of the Providence Teachers Union has said publicly that teachers will vote to strike if a proposed three-year agreement with the city is not ratified.
The proposal, hammered out over six months of mediation, would give teachers 11.5 percent in raises over three years, including 2 percent retroactive to last September.
Some teachers have said the retroactive pay was a key factor in winning approval of the contract from the membership on April 30.
On Tuesday, the City Council Finance Committee held back the cost of that retroactive 2-percent raise -- $2.8 million -- when it passed the school budget along to the full council.
The council is scheduled to act on the entire city budget on Monday and set a tax levy next Wednesday.
Lombardi yesterday said he was trying to get his bearings on the situation but had not yet had a chance to speak to the Finance Committee chairman, Councilman Kevin Jackson, D-Ward 3.
Lombardi lamented a "lack of communication" on various fronts -- the School Department, the office of Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., and the city's delegation to the General Assembly -- that left City Council members in the dark on some issues and ultimately led to the Finance Committee vote, which in some quarters fell like a bombshell.
At the Providence Teachers Union's office, for example, a spokeswoman for union president Phil DeCecco said he could not come to the phone to speak to a reporter because things were "very hectic."
Last week, the union's executive secretary, Joseph A. Almagno, predicted that unless the contract is ratified, teachers will vote to strike on the first day of school, Aug. 26.
The union membership, which has already accepted the contract, cannot reopen negotiations without rescinding its approval and putting everything back on the table, Almagno said.
Yesterday, Schools Supt. Diana Lam said she is disappointed by Tuesday's vote but "we still have the opportunity to ensure that there's a smooth opening of school. "
She said she spoke yesterday with the leadership of the teachers' union and the administrators' association. Administrative raises historically have been keyed to those given to teachers.
"I personally want to reach out to every City Council member in terms of validating their feelings about the past year," Lam said.
"But I also have to say we need to look at the future. We can't just concentrate on the past," Lam said.
City Councilwoman Patricia K. Nolan, D-Ward 9, said she faults the Providence Teachers Union for holding up the contract settlement, but would not say that her objections to a retroactive pay increase are strong enough to make her vote against it in the budget.
She said she has not yet seen the latest version of the budget and must still think long and hard about her vote.
City Councilwoman Rita M. Williams, D-Ward 2, said she was "dismayed" when she learned that the Finance Committee had voted to deny teachers their retroactive raise.
"I understand some of the council members' concerns," she said. "It sounds like a lot of hostility toward the teachers, who dragged their feet on the contract," Williams said.
"As much as I don't like the anticipation of a possible strike, teachers have to come on board with efforts made to reform," she said.
As an outsider to the school district, Williams said, she sees the union leadership encouraging resistance to progress, while many individual teachers "want to move ahead."
Williams said she will introduce a resolution at the council's next meeting next Thursday to revive a council-sponsored education committee that will seek to foster regular communication among parts of city government and the community.
The committee will consist of five council members, two school board members, the superintendent or her representative, a representative of the mayor's office and two parents, Williams said. She said the first meeting is scheduled for Aug. 7.
Lam detractor named principal
Posted Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Beatrice Wiggins, who has accused Schools Supt. Diana Lam of cronyism and bias in hiring and promotion practices, is appointed principal at Mount Pleasant High School.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Beatrice Wiggins, the veteran educator and outspoken critic of the hiring and promotion practices of Schools Supt. Diana Lam, won appointment as principal of Mount Pleasant High School last night on a 5-to-2 vote.
One School Board member after another called on Lam to defend her recommendation that it promote a woman who has publicly accused the superintendent of cronyism in hiring and promotion practices.
Lam said Wiggins, now an assistant principal at Mount Pleasant, came out on top in interviews as a "capable professional who has compassion for children and is really interested and committed to being the principal" at Mount Pleasant.
"I have great confidence that Beatrice will do a good job," Lam said, and that she and Wiggins will be able to work together.
Lam said she was asked in the board's executive session whether she had nominated Wiggins because Wiggins is black.
"Absolutely not," Lam said.
"At this point in time" and "for this placement, she is the best candidate," the superintendent said.
During an interview earlier yesterday, Lam acknowledged the controversy surrounding her nomination of Wiggins.
"A lot of people think I'm nuts," Lam said with a laugh.
In a serious vein, she said, "Nobody likes to be attacked."
She recalled countless times in the last three years when Wiggins appeared before the School Board as the president of the Rhode Island Association of Concerned Black Educators, asserting that Lam's personnel policies discriminate against African-Americans.
Because of Wiggins's public statements, there has been a "mixed response" to the nomination, Lam said.
She said there is "mistrust from certain segments of the educational community" who wonder whether they might have professional conversations with Wiggins that would then be made public at a School Board meeting.
Lam said she is "very reassured by Beatrice that she will know how to differentiate when she chooses to exercise her freedom of speech."
Wiggins has an "understanding of the work that lies ahead and the challenges for her," Lam said, including ways of building the collaboration she needs at Mount Pleasant.
After her appointment, Wiggins was uncharacteristically circumspect in her comments, saying only that she looks forward to the challenges ahead at Mount Pleasant, which has the same problems as Central and Hope High Schools.
Board member Leonard Lopes, said it is "good for the system" when Wiggins comes to School Board meetings to speak her mind.
But he could not support Wiggins's appointment, no matter what discrimination she has experienced, Lopes said, speaking as a member of a minority group who has endured the same kind of bias. Lopes describes himself as Cape Verdean-American of African descent.
The deciding factor in Lopes's vote against Wiggins was that Lam had not submitted the same documentation in support of Wiggins's nomination as she had for other job candidates.
The other nay vote on Wiggins came from board member Susan DeRita.
"I also appreciate it when she comes to meetings," DeRita said of Wiggins, but "I do have some concerns about the support she will have with faculty and students."
"I have addressed this with the superintendent and have not received information from the superintendent to satisfy my concern," DeRita said.
Roosevelt Benton said, "In my mind, I felt that Bea Wiggins would be the last person the superintendent would recommend."
At the last board meeting, Benton said, he urged his colleagues to withdraw Wiggins's appointment, because Lam was not present to support her recommendation.
Since then, Benton said, "I have questioned the superintendent and asked her to make a case for Bea.
"She insists Bea Wiggins is the person, and I'm not going to override her recommendation. She is the superintendent," Benton said.
Later, Benton also said he respects the integrity of both DeRita and Lopes in making decisions, even when their conclusions disagree with his.
Committee begins real work on budget
Posted Thursday, July 18, 2002
The City Council's finance panel will hear recommendations Monday on how to align school spending with Providence's $500-million budget plan.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Of $9 million in proposed school budget cuts before the City Council, one is clearly unrealistic from a political standpoint: $1.1 million in savings from eliminating varsity sports.
That's the opinion of City Councilman Kevin M. Jackson, D-Ward 3, chairman of the council's Finance Committee.
"The uproar in the city would be outrageous," Jackson said yesterday.
"That's just a cut to start emotions flowing," he said. "That's an easy one for them to put on a piece of paper."
Another $3.8 million in reductions appears at least as outrageous -- eliminating two days from the 182-day school year for students and cutting three days of professional development for teachers.
Those cuts depend on the cooperation of the labor unions representing school employees, including teachers, who are loathe to agree to anything at least until the council ratifies their new three-year contract.
The Finance Committee will hear recommendations from City Finance Director Alex Prignano on Monday on ways to balance the city budget of more than $500 million.
Prignano has estimated that the city finished the last fiscal year June 30 with a surplus "in the millions," but he has not said how much of that money, if any, could be applied against the projected school deficit. Efforts to reach him yesterday were unsuccessful.
Jackson said the way school officials presented their budget, with a built-in $23-million deficit that has been pared in stages, puts the City Council in the position of being the "bad guys" who must either insist on further cuts or raise taxes.
He said school officials must look at their spending plan as part of the overall city budget, which is proposed at slightly more than $500 million for the current fiscal year.
Schools account for more than half that total. The schools' bottom line stood at $276.76 million last month, with a revenue shortage of $14.59 million before school officials put on the table $9 million in proposed cuts, each one more draconian than the last.
The executive director of the Providence Teachers Union, Joseph A. Almagno, suggested yesterday that allowing the city to cut five days from the school year would be a hard sell, at best, with the membership in light of the fact that the council has yet to consider the contract teachers ratified April 30.
Almagno paraphrased some of the comments he has received from union members: "We spent 17 months arguing about time on task, and length of the school day and length of the school year, and now management is going to propose fewer school days?
"Who is going to stand up and justify that position?" Almagno asked rhetorically.
"Who among them is going to stand up and say, 'We need fewer days and fewer hours of professional development,' " Almagno said.
Mary E. McClure, vice president of the School Board, said Almagno's point is well taken.
"From my point of view, it would be very painful to cut school days," she said.
And Jackson is right in saying the School Board must consider the effect its budget will have on the entire city.
She said part of the problem is that the School Board, like the City Council, must deliberate at a time of year when it does not have a clear idea of its projected revenue.
Jackson raised the possibility of changing the municipal fiscal year to eliminate the annual guessing game that occurs in May and June, before the General Assembly has finalized the amount municipalities will get in state aid to education.
McClure also said that the School Board puts together a budget -- due in the mayor's office May 1, "based on what we think we need."
She said "80 percent of the budget is people, and if we are in fact going to pay people competitively and fairly, that budget is going to increase."
"Nobody wants to cut anything on the list, but we need to understand what the city can afford and the board can help the city understand implications of the cuts," McClure said.
"We and the City Council can do a better job of communicating," McClure said. "'They shouldn't feel blindsided."
She suggested that communication would improve with a vehicle such as the education subcommittee once proposed for the City Council by Councilwoman Rita Williams, D-Ward 2.
Almagno said that from a logistical standpoint, he could not envision teachers authorizing its leaders to re-open negotiations before the council ratifies the teachers' contract.
Jackson said the council has not considered the contract because it was not submitted until the end of the school year, when budget deliberations were already under way.
"I'm not trying to lay blame on anyone," Jackson said. "I want the teachers union to understand that unfortunately, this is how it is."
"We have to put blinders on" to deal with the budget by the July 31 deadline for setting a tax levy, he said.
After that, the council will take up the contract promptly, Jackson said.
Almagno, meanwhile, laid out the position of the union.
Teachers have worked an entire school year under an extension to the previous agreement, which expires Aug. 31, he said.
The 2002-2003 school calendar is part of the new pact awaiting approval from the City Council, he said, and without that approval, teachers will not go to school.
The union has scheduled a membership meeting for 9 a.m., Aug. 26, teacher orientation day, to present a progress report on the contract, Almagno said.
Lam cites unfinished work as deciding factor to stay in R.I.
Posted Tuesday, July 16, 2002
Schools Supt. Diana Lam turns down an offer from Portland, Ore., saying she instead wants to finish the reform she started three years ago in Providence.
BY MARION DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Schools Supt. Diana Lam announced yesterday that she wants to stay in the city, ending weeks of uncertainty about whether she would be lured away by an offer from the Portland, Ore., school system.
Lam's chief of staff, Sue Lusi, said Lam made her decision "at the end of this week." Lusi conveyed the message to the School Board and top administrators in an e-mail yesterday.
Lam was unavailable for comment, having gone on a sudden trip to Minnesota due to the death of her husband's mother, according to Lusi.
Lam did, however, submit an editorial to be published tomorrow in The Providence Sunday Journal, in which she says she reached her decision "after much soul-searching," many conversations with people in Providence, and a stream of letters and e-mails.
"I have decided my work here is not yet finished," she wrote. "Over the last three years, we turned a vision into a foundation for reform.
"Now, we stand on the brink of bringing reforms to scale -- in every school in this district, for every child in the city. I know this work will not be easy but I am energized and ready for what lies ahead."
Lusi said the Providence School Department staff members whom she'd told the news were "extremely excited" about Lam's decision, and she herself "couldn't be more pleased."
Mary McClure, vice chair of the Providence School Board, echoed that sentiment, saying she was "very excited, very pleased."
Board Chairwoman Olga Noguera was more restrained, saying she did not want to discuss Lam's job status before speaking with her in a School Board executive session on Monday.
Lam, whose three-year contract is up for renewal, has yet to reach a deal with the School Board, which offered her another three years last December.
Noguera said that "of course" she wants Lam to stay. Asked how she felt about the competition with Portland over the past few weeks, she replied: "I don't think we are competing with anybody, but we will make a package offer to the superintendent and it's up to her to accept it. That's what we will be discussing on Monday."
Earlier this week, it was disclosed that the School Board had sought help from private business to sweeten the deal for Lam and try to match a "very big offer" from Portland.
Richard Hoag, CEO of the Providence Washington Insurance Co., told the Journal that business leaders were exploring ways to pull together a retirement package for Lam, 54, who wouldn't be eligible for a state pension until she had worked 10 years. In Portland, she would have been vested in the state system immediately because she is over 50.
Lam's retirement package has been the last hurdle in her contract negotiations with the School Board.
Asked whether she thought the business community's involvement had helped to persuade Lam to stay, McClure said she did, on two levels: by addressing her retirement concerns, and by giving Lam a sense of the "rallying and support of the community."
"Truly, in order to succeed, you need the support of many different areas of the community, and I think that having people express that to her at this point reaffirmed the commitment that was there," McClure said.
Indeed, in her editorial tomorrow, Lam cites the relationships she has built with Providence educators, residents, civic and community leaders, government officials and business leaders as "reason enough to forge ahead and face the challenges of seeing our effort through."
Grass-roots effort to keep Lam played out elsewhere
Posted Friday, July 12, 2002
Private fundraising kept a Kansas schools superintendent from a job in Portland, Ore. -- which is reportedly cooling in its interest for Providence Schools Supt. Diana Lam.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Richard Hoag, the insurance executive who is asking private business to contribute to a retirement package that he hopes will keep Schools Supt. Diana Lam in Providence, has his counterpart in Wichita, Kan.
His name is Les Eck, a Ford dealer who launched a fundraising drive in April to keep Wichita's superintendent from leaving town by bumping his compensation package from $137,800 to nearly $200,000 a year.
At the time, the Portland, Ore., School Board had advertised a salary range of $155,000 to $175,000 for its next superintendent. Portland had taken the initiative in recruiting the Wichita superintendent, as well as Lam for the job.
A spokeswoman for the Portland search also disclosed that the previous superintendent's salary -- $166,000 -- had been augmented by a $25,000 annuity payment. He also had been eligible for up to $40,000 in performance bonuses.
Furthermore, the spokeswoman said, Portland business owners had at least talked about underwriting additional salary or benefits to attract a new superintendent, although no money had been actually committed.
Wichita's Winston Brooks, head of a district of 49,000 students and 100 schools, was one of four superintendents who appeared in Portland for two days of public interviews in March and April.
All of them dropped out, for various reasons. Brooks, more than any of the rest, cited a groundswell of support in Wichita.
In recent weeks, Portland has been courting Lam, informally making her a "big economic offer," in Hoag's words, even though she has not yet said whether she will agree to become a finalist.
But it's not a foregone conclusion that Providence and Portland are squaring off for a bidding war. After a closed-door meeting of the Portland School Board yesterday, the Portland media were reporting that ardor for Lam may be cooling.
One thing Hoag's counterpart in Wichita would advise him is that private fundraising for a public employee can get "a lot more political than I expected," as Eck put it.
Eck's fundraising efforts have triggered resentment from teachers and others who point out the disparity between Brooks's financial prospects and pending budget cuts that could hurt children in the classroom.
Like Hoag, Eck says he considers the private fundraising an investment in public education. Brooks heads a team of people who are working exceptionally well together, Eck said, and losing him would have wreaked havoc across the Wichita school district.
Hoag, CEO of the Providence Washington Insurance Co., says Lam's three years in Providence are "not enough" for the failing system to turn around. Like Eck in Wichita, Hoag shudders at the thought of a change in leadership in the public schools when they have begun to improve.
Lam's salary of $170,430, which includes a $6,000 performance bonus, is high for public education in Rhode Island, but not in comparison to other big-city school superintendents.
The only other Rhode Island public educator earning more than Lam is Robert L. Carothers, president of the University of Rhode Island. He makes $179,573.
Peter McWalters, commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, makes $142,291, according to a spokesman. In addition, the state puts the amount it would ordinarily contribute to the state retirement system -- 11.3 percent of McWalters's salary, or about $16,000 -- into an annuity.
He is the only public official the General Assembly has exempted from the state retirement system. Lam and the School Board agreed to seek such an exemption when the superintendent arrived in Providence in 1999, but none was forthcoming from the General Assembly.
Hoag said yesterday he does not yet know what shape Lam's retirement package might take. He said he does not know how much money might be involved.
According to the Council of Great City Schools, an association of 60 urban school districts to which Providence belongs, Lam's $170,000 salary falls below the average of $177,000 for all its member superintendents for the school year that ended in June 2001.
Among superintendents in member school districts with fewer than 50,000 students, Lam's compensation ranks above the 2001 average of $153,221, according to the council.
But the council's salary figures do not include benefits, the value of which averaged $44,954 for member superintendents in 2001.
Members of the Providence School Board say they want to wrap up negotiations with Lam on her contract as soon as possible. They will have a private negotiating session on Monday with Lam, whose three-year contract expires July 31.
Officials mull cuts in school budget
Posted Thursday, July 11, 2002
Members of the City Council Finance Committee study proposals to pare 14.5 million from the school budget.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The chairman of the City Council Finance Committee indicated last night that the council would do its best to meet the needs of public schools, which face $14.5 million in budget cuts unless the council puts more money into eduction.
The tone set by Kevin Jackson, D-Ward 3, contrasted with an undertone of sarcasm that had punctuated questions from council members a month ago, when school officials first faced the Finance Committe to discuss the built-in deficit of $14.5 million in a budget proposal of $276.76 million.
Jackson said that the Finance Committee and the council as a whole has been "very supportive" of efforts to strengthen the schools.
He said council members will study a list of proposed cuts school officials presented last night, and "we'll get back to you."
The most draconian cut would eliminate five working days for teachers, including two instructional days and three days of professional development, for a savings of $3.88 million.
But those reductions could not be made without reopening contract talks with various labor unions, according to Mark V. Dunham, the district's top business administrator.
He said he does not believe that the Providence Teachers Union is eager to go back to the bargaining table on a change that will result in pay cut for its members.
Meanwhile, Dunham said, elminating varsity athletics would reduce the budget by $1.1 million.
The varsity athletic budget includes $750,000 in stipends for coaches, a figure that made Councilman Luis Aponte shake his head.
"I don't want to be excessive," Aponte said, "but it's hard to see how 80 percent of the varsity sports budget goes to salaries."
"It would be hard for me to tell parents that we're going to raise taxes and cut athletics," he said.
The message implicit in the hefty account for coaches is that they will coach only if they are paid for it, Aponte said.
School Board member Samuel Zurier said about $10 million of the overall $14.5 million projected deficit is linked in some way to the cost of the recently negotiated teachers contract during the next year.
Zurier said the School Board had to work with teachers, "because it became clear to us that all of the money we have invested in consultants and coaches and redesign would all be wasted if we did not invest in our teachers."
Citing improvements in elementary test scores and other changes, Zurier said the schools have come a long way in the last three years, and he asked the City Council to do the same.
In the last two years, the city has contributed roughtly one-third of the school budget and the state has put up well over half, Zurier told the Finance Committee.
Jackson recalled a tax increase passed two years ago to raise an additional $2.5 million for the schools when the state didn't come through.
"We will continue to work to strengthen our schools," he said.
"We have never refused a new school, and the extra staffing that goes along with it.
"We continue to believe that smaller is better, but we're caught with an accumulation of things passed on to the municipalities" as a result of the legislature's failure to fund public education more heavily, Jackson said.
Principals' nominations shelved
Posted Wednesday, July 10, 2002
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Beatrice Wiggins, a vocal critic of the hiring practices of Schools Supt. Diana Lam, has been nominated by Lam to become principal of Mount Pleasant High School, where she has worked as an assistant principal for the last three years.
But the School Board on Monday tabled the nomination of Wiggins and two other nominees, both acting middle school principals who were up for permanent appointments.
They are Carl. S. Lauro, acting principal at Esek Hopkins Middle School and Arthur P. Petrosinelli, acting principal at the Roger Williams Middle School.
Yesterday, the chairman of the education committee of the Ministers Alliance of Rhode Island said the organization strongly supports Wiggins, a teacher and administrator in the city's public schools since 1969.
The Rev. Virgil Wood said he attended the School Board meeting Monday and asked for a reason the nomination of Wiggins was withdrawn, but was not satisfied by the response.
Lam was represented at the meeting by her chief of staff, Susan F. Lusi, who withdrew the nominations of the three candidates after the board emerged from a private session.
Lusi said she told Wood that the nominations were withdrawn because "School Board members had further questions they wanted additional time to discuss."
Wiggins began working in Providence as a high school social studies teacher. She was promoted to an assistant principal at Hope High School in 1992 and five years later became one of three zone administrators.
Those positions, created by former Schools Supt. Arthur M. Zarrella, put an additional administrative layer between the central office and individual schools.
But when Lam arrived in Providence in the summer of 1999, she abolished the positions of the zone administrators, saying she wanted to have direct contact with school principals.
The zone administrators returned to their previous positions, which meant Wiggins again became an assistant principal.
Since then, Wiggins has become a frequent speaker at School Board meetings, objecting to Lam's nominations for administrative appointments.
As president of the Rhode Island Association of Concerned Black Educators, Wiggins has told the School Board that Lam has practiced the same kind of "favoritism" in hiring that she was supposed to eliminate.
When Wiggins was once asked whether her appearances before the School Board could be construed as sour grapes, she said that her public statements had nothing to do with her career.
Wiggins and Lam have sparred publicly, with the superintendent knocking Wiggins' predictions of successful candidates for administrative appointments.
Lam contended the predictions were based on leaks from the central administration, but Wiggins challenged that assertion.
For example, Wiggins said, she predicted last fall that Harry Potter, principal of Hope High School, would be named director of drop-out prevention and recovery.
At the time, the School Board had just created the position and the application period had not started, Wiggins noted. .
The appointment of Potter to the drop-out prevention post turned out to be controversial for Lam after the state commissioner of education announced last month he would intervene at Hope because of a skyrocketing dropout rate and other indicators that school was failing.
Lam was out of town yesterday at a conference Lusi said was scheduled a year ago.
Mary E. McClure, the School Board's vice president, said Lam travels a "fair amount" under the sponsorship of professional organizations, "perhaps more than we are used to."
She said that the travel meshes with Lam's participation in activities that raise her profile in national school reform circles and attract the attention of philanthropic foundations.
"When foundations do give you money for things, they have expectations about your participation in various events," McClure said.
Schools look for ways to cut costs
Posted Tuesday, July 9, 2002
Sports and staff development are among items on the line as school officials meet tomorrow night with the City Council Finance Committee.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The latest budget cuts on the table for the public schools would stab at the heart of education improvements made in recent years, eliminating two days from the 182-day academic year and three out of five days reserved for teachers' professional development.
As if those cuts weren't dramatic enough, the schools also would eliminate varsity athletics and security guards, two moves sure to be a lightning rod for contentious debate.
School officials will meet with the City Council Finance Committee tomorrow night to discuss a total of $9.54 million in potential cuts that would reduce the proposed budget from $276.76 million to $267.22 million.
The gap between revenues and expenses, now $14.5 million, would be cut to $5.05 million.
Susan F. Lusi, chief of staff to Schools Supt. Diana Lam, said yesterday that school officials hope the city can not only make up the $5-million deficit but prevent the most drastic budget cuts.
"We recognize that this is a very tight budget year, but these are also very dramatic cuts," Lusi said.
"These are cuts that will really affect the programming and support that can be given to our schools and students," she said.
It is not at all clear how far the council is willing to go in spending more taxpayer dollars on education.
At a Finance Committee meeting last month, some council members chided school officials for submitting a budget with such a high built-in deficit in the first place, saying the proposal depended on a large-scale increase in state aid that everyone knew months ago would not materialize.
Lusi said school officials "fervently hope more can be done, but we do recognize the difficult choices our City Council needs to make."
She said reducing five working days for teachers would save $3.88 million, and eliminating varsity athletics would pare $1.1 million from the budget.
Security for the district's 50-odd buildings represents $575,000 on the budget. Any such move would be fought by the Providence Teachers Union, whose members lobbied successfully against such a cut about two years ago.
Other items on the chopping block are $661,974 in custodial services and $144,489 in maintenance.
Altogether, these proposed cuts add up to $6.36 million of the proposed $9.5 million in cuts that are expected to be discussed with the council Finance Committee tomorrow.
Relatively speaking, Lusi said, a proposed cut of $49,870 in fine arts admission fees is a small dollar amount but has "high value" to students in providing access to live theater and other artistic experiences the children deserve.
The meeting begins at 6 p.m., and discussion on the school budget is scheduled to begin at 7:30. The meeting was to have been at 6 p.m. today, but it was rescheduled so Lam could attend, Lusi said.
Some members of the council have criticized Lam, as well as School Board members, for failing to attend last month's Finance Committee meeting on the budget.
At that session, council members knocked administrative salaries, which they said were too high, and property leases, which at the time figured in testimony in the corruption trial of Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., who was convicted of conspiracy under federal racketeering laws.
Among the proposed budget cuts up for discussion tomorrow are $79,454 in reductions on lease payments for classroom space and the elimination of a key administrative position that costs $117,000, including health benefits.
The position of the executive director of student support services became vacant when Thomas Mezzanotte retired June 30, but the School Department would be loathe to eliminate that post, Lusi said.
She said Mezzanotte "was the first point of contact for parents and other members of the community who have a concern or complaint."
Mezzanotte oversaw student registration, placement, discipline, counseling, and alternative education. And he also worked with all the schools on scheduling, she said.
The proposed reduction of $79,454 in lease payments would eliminate space at Bishop McVinney and St. Mary's schools that has been used for overflow elementary school enrollment, according to Mark V. Dunham, the district's chief financial administrator.
If the leases are eliminated and enrollment increases unexpectedly, a budget overrun will result, he said. The district would be forced to belatedly renew those leases to avoid exceeding the maximum class size of 26, which has the weight of a Superior Court order.
Pension rule a key factor in Lam talks
Posted Monday, July 8, 2002
The school superintendent wants to be exempted from the requirement that she work here for 10 years before becoming vested in the state retirement plan.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- With less than a month left on her three-year contract here, Schools Supt. Diana Lam still isn't saying whether she might respond to overtures from the school board in Portland, Ore., to become a finalist for the superintendent's post there.
Meanwhile, one School Board member says that Lam is "eager to wrap things up" by mid-July -- in about 10 more days -- with negotiations on a new agreement that would keep her in Providence three more years.
Mary McClure, the School Board's vice president, said some details remain unsettled, but she acknowledged that the state retirement plan, which covers Lam, is a "negative factor" in the talks.
The plan requires public school teachers and administrators to work 10 years in Rhode Island before they are vested.
In Lam's contract, signed in 1999, she and the board agreed to pursue legislation that would exempt her from participation in the state retirement system and allow the board to establish an individual retirement plan for her.
No such law has passed, McClure said, and the board has asked its lawyer to find out what efforts were made in that regard.
"I think the fact that her pension hasn't been vested certainly is an immediate factor for someone of Diana's age," said McClure. Lam is 54. "If our pension structure were not so restrictive it would be easier," she said.
She said only Peter McWalters, the state Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, is exempt from the state retirement system, as the result of a legislative exemption allowed by the General Assembly.
"To me," the restrictions of the retirement law seem "based on perceptions appropriate in another age," McClure said. "It doesn't work to our advantage right now."
Most teachers and school administrators historically have worked in one state most, or all, of their careers, but it has become more common recently for them to respond to the same kind of nationwide recruiting that is well established in the business world, especially at the upper echelons.
Apart from Lam's case, McClure said the lack of flexibility in the state retirement law is a deterrent in attracting and keeping other talented educators.
For example, Deputy Supt. Melody A. Johnson, whom Lam recruited from San Antonio, has said she must return to Texas at some point before her retirement to be able to collect pension payments in that state.
McClure said she believes other Rhode Island school districts will face the same problems with the retirement system.
Both McClure and Lam's chief of staff, Susan F. Lusi, said yesterday that Lam has given no indication she has made plans to travel to Portland for public interviews as a finalist for the superintendent's post.
Lam won't be in town Monday, when the School Board will discuss her contract in private, but she won't be in Portland, either, McClure said. She was not more specific.
It is not unusual for Lam to be out of town, because she travels frequently to raise private money for the district and is soughtafter as a speaker and participant in conferences on educational reform.
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