Making Fiscal Sense I

I believe the entire public sector/private sector discussion referred to (on the Norwich ListServ 10/28/10) arises from Stan Williams' "new superintendent qualifications input" post from earlier this week.

I'm afraid the public/private sector distinction is unnecessarily/unhelpfully obscuring Stan's "three major concerns about the state of the Hanover/Norwich school system."

To press the points home, I've repeated Stan's post below [sanitized of the public/private distinction within bold italicized brackets] as I think his points are well worth pondering and discussion:

I have three major concerns about the state of the Hanover/Norwich school system.

1. Unfunded pension and health liabilities will crush our ability to provide a quality education at a reasonable cost unless we continue to attack these costs - the new superintendent must be able and willing to tackle this issue in the next round of contract negotiations. At a minimum, new teachers should not expect to receive a defined benefits pension - this perk has [become a major and intractable fiscal millstone for many states and municipalities].

2) Teacher Evaluation - as a board member for two years, I was never able to receive ANY data on the number of teachers rated excellent, good, poor (use any rating system you like.) I find it hard to believe that it is possible to effectively run a service sector, labor intensive operation without good data on employee performance, and I believe the board and taxpayers need more information, in aggregate - not individually, about teacher performance.

I know the board has addressed merit pay in the past and defining excellent performance is not easy and can be subjective, but [as individuals, we tackle difficult, subjective decisions every day] and [where evaluating the quality of our childrens' education is in question] imperfection is better than not trying at all.

3) Tenure - originally intended to protect academic freedom, this is another perk that really [begs the question whether we are guaranteeing employment at the expense of evaluating quality of teaching]. The administration needs the ability to more easily terminate teachers that don't make the grade (see above.)

To teachers who may think this sounds a bit harsh, I can only say that I do appreciate the individual excellent efforts of the vast majority of the teachers who have taught my children very well over the years. But I honestly believe these are key issues on which we must focus as a school system as well as a society - we can no longer afford to have education costs rise greater than GDP growth in perpetuity. (This goes as well for universities, where the issues above are all in play, or will soon be.)

Thanks for your efforts on the board.

Stan Williams

[paraphrased/rephrased by Watt Alexander]

Special Meeting Notices

I'm afraid I've become a perennial crank, but I want to express a concern regarding the recent notices posted here and on the town email lists:

THERE WILL BE A SPECIAL MEETING OF THE NORWICH SELECTBOARD
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Time: 5:00 PM
Place: Tracy Hall, Multipurpose Room
Agenda: VLCT Workshop on the Roles of the Manager and of the Selectboard and Leadership and Management Roles of the Selectboard

-- and --

A Community Discussion on Norwich Town Highways & Community Facilities
Wednesday, May 6 at 7 PM
Multi-Purpose Meeting Room
Tracy Hall

TOPICS:
Highways • Roads • Bike Paths • Trails
Improvements • Maintenance • New Facilities
Park & Ride

Recreation Facilities
Playing Fields • Pool • Access to River
New facilities

Other Community Facilities

PURPOSE:
An opportunity for community discussion in an informal atmosphere with all ideas and comments welcome
Provide guidance to Town
Provide ideas for the Norwich Town Plan

Basic information will be available on projects underway or planned for immediate future

- - - -

These are both important and useful meetings which directly address persistent concerns/conflicts in town. I applaud the effort to put them together and hope as many interested residents as possible can attend. I'm concerned that public notice for both of these meetings went out Monday afternoon, barely 48 hours prior to the meetings. I'm not interested in open meetings law implications or theories about cabals, etc. I'm simply concerned that a couple days is pretty short notice and will necessarily mean some people will not attend due to other commitments and/or not reading the notices in time. There may very well be good reasons why these notices could not go out earlier, but the net effect is a further gap between Tracy Hall and the rest of us -- not anyone's intent.

Every year, Town Eating discussion ultimately arrives at the question of how to help townspeople become more involved. Every year, some committee or town official takes it on the chin unfairly for decisions made at public sessions by people who weren't in attendance when the decision was discussed. There's no simple answer, but diligent efforts to give people a couple weeks warning of important events is certainly part of it. Businesses looking to drum up sales or raise their profile do this pretty well -- giving people plenty of warning and trying to build momentum as the event nears. It's extra work and more effort, but that's what it takes.

As a town government, we lack the profit motive and clear managerial focus to prompt that effort. It's not merely a matter of Selectboard policies. It's really a question of our political culture and a basic recognition that self-government at this scale is an on-going dialogue which, though time-consuming, is good in itself. It's an approach I gather our police chief and town manager have both internalized to some degree as they both continue to make extraordinary efforts to engage the community. As a town, as a community, we can do a better job of making the time for that dialogue and taking the time to maximize opportunities for as many as possible to participate.

Letter to Planning Commission re: Open Meetings

I've followed, with interest, the recent "open meetings" dispute regarding your site visit to Maple Leaf Partners' properties on their subdivision application. I have no agenda regarding that application or the lawsuit which preceded it. I do want to express my hope that, in the future, the PC will, as a matter of policy, refuse to conduct a site visit where an applicant seeks to deprive access to certain members of the public in attendance.

The subdivision application and evidentiary support for that application are matters of public record and we have a strong tradition, supported by statute, of permitting the public access to these aspects of the application process. I hope the Planning Commission will dispense with any further consideration of the specific statute in question and simply adopt this policy, as it reflects the values of public access and accountability without, in any substantive way, infringing upon an applicant's rights or expectation of privacy. It's a shame you've been put in this position and I see little purpose in dwelling upon it. The solution seems to me to be a statement of policy upholding the importance of public access and a new site visit.