Connelly tops town employee salary listing
Published on April 28th, 2004
STONEHAM, MA - "When this article comes out every year, I always cringe because it's not really representative. Yeah it's total compensation, but it's not really my regular salary earnings."
Upon seeing the list of 2003 salaries where his name stands above all others, that's what Stoneham Superintendent Dr. Joseph Connelly had to say upon finding his regular salary classification listed at $138,074.69.
Claiming that his salary in FY03 was truly $124,564, Connelly takes several issues with the list's contents, primarily that it classifies earnings by calendar year instead of fiscal year and includes fringe benefits such as life insurance, and annuity.
"Somebody's giving you misleading figures. They're throwing in things like long-term life insurance. Everybody gets life insurance and that's not included in their salaries," Connelly argued. "Is it earnings? Yeah it's earnings towards my life insurance, but that's not going into my pocket every two weeks."
While Town Treasurer Tom Ciccatelli, whose office generates the list each year, agrees that the calendar year classification can prove confusing at times when negotiated raises from one fiscal year to the next throw an employees earnings out of whack, he believes it's a fair way to determine yearly salaries.
"We just take W-2 statements from the previous year. It doesn't correlate to the fiscal year because it's one half of one year and half of another. But those are real earnings. It's basically what their gross earnings were in 2003," Ciccatelli said.
According to Connelly, the list is of a particular concern this year because of two reasons: 1) on a personal level because of rumors concerning his recently renegotiated contract with the school committee and 2) because of statements made by some prominent town officials claiming that employee raises of 6.75 percent over the next three years are driving the need for an override.
As to his renegotiated contract, which was extended earlier this year until 2008 (although it didn't officially expire until 2006), Connelly wants to set the record straight.
According to his new contract, Connelly will receive $2500 in longevity this year after residing as Stoneham's Superintendent for five-years, a perk previously listed in his old contract at $700. While his contract also stipulates that he will receive another $900 payment for his fifteenth year as Superintendent, $900 for his twentieth year, and $1500 for his 25th anniversary, Connelly chuckled at the idea of receiving the payments.
"The School Committee gave me this increase because they realized I'm not going to be around in fifteen years. I'm in my sixties now. So what does this mean for Joe Connelly? It means they gave me a one-time $1800 increase on my longevity. It's not $2500 on top of the original $700 because I first had to work five years," explained Connelly.
Also receiving a $4000 increase in his base pay, Connelly claimed that his net salary would increase by $6200 in FY05, a 4.8 percent addition.
"You'd have to ask the school committee why they felt such an increase was justified. But contrary to popular opinion, my salary is not $150,000. It's not $178,000. It's $134,564. This was not a huge windfall and I have no idea where these rumors came from. This is it; this is my contract," said Connelly, who will also annually receive $10,000 in a tax deferred annuity, 30-vacation days, a $1 million personal liability policy, and "reasonable" reimbursement for expenses occurred while working in a professional capacity.
As to Connelly's second concern, the school's negotiated three-year 6.75 percent raise, the Superintendent contends that the raises do not constitute the primary reason for the proposed $2.9 million override.
Both Town Administrator David Berry and Town Accountant Ron Florino agree.
However, while Connelly was able to provide detailed estimates of the costs for school raises in FY04 and FY05, Berry was unable to locate or recall the approximate costs for the town --despite hammering out the raises with town employees while sitting at the negotiating table.
Luckily, Florino, who calculated the rough estimates for the raises in a mere three minutes, was able to augment Berry's clouded recollection.
According to Florino, the salary raises would cost the town approximately $120,000 in FY04, $200,000 in FY05, and $240,000 in FY06. On the school side, the raises would cost $275,451 in FY04 and an estimated $280,000 in FY05.
Excluding the school's portion for FY06, which Connelly promised to make available to the public in September after layoffs and retirements are calculated, the increases would cost the town more than $1.1 million over three years. Because the 1.5 percent FY04 raise will be distributed to employees retroactively, one could reasonably conclude that the combined FY04/FY05 raises would carry an $855,000 price tag this year, approximately 20 percent of the town's $4.3 million deficit.
However, explaining that he informed employee unions of the fiscal climate and warned that layoffs would result if any raises were doled out, Berry claims the salary increases will fall far short of reaching that figure.
"They said they'd rather get the cost of living (COLA) increases because they'd never make it back up. Most of the time town's say, 'we'll try to make it up,' and it never happens. If it means more layoffs, they're aware of that and are willing to accept that fact," Berry recalled.
"If I felt that giving the COLA increases were a major cause of the situation we're in, I would have never advocated for them. I just don't think it's a major contributor. Sure it will cost a couple hundred thousand, but that's a small segment compared to the overall deficit," Berry added.
Florino agrees, adding that even if an override passed this June, the town would still be cutting over $1 million from the budget, heavily reducing personnel expenses.
"If it does pass, our budget would still be $1 million less and most of the cuts would be in personnel because we can't keep up with pensions and health insurance. So we have to layoff to fund some of these raises and those layoffs would probably absorb all of the increases over the next two years," explained Florino.
According to Connelly, the school committee met with the Finance Board and Selectmen earlier this year to discuss the contract negotiations.
"The Finance Committee and Board of Selectmen said there was zero money available this year for salary negotiations and that all we could do is negotiate with what we had," said Connelly.
Citing savings from teacher layoffs and the permanent reduction of 19 teachers this year, Connelly said the school committee did exactly as it was told, utilizing $275,451 from those savings to pay for FY04 salaries.
With three pending teacher retirements for FY05, Connelly argued that similar savings will offset the cost of the raises for this year.
"There's an additional $53,364 in retirements. So what we do is immediately address that in our budget. So what happens is our total salary increase will be 1.82 percent," Connelly remarked.
"One could argue if you negotiated a 2.5 percent raise for FY05, how can the salaries only be going up 1.82 percent? And that's particularly because of these retirements," the superintendent added.
While both teachers and town employees also receive raises through 2.5 percent step increases, most town employees have already reached the maximum salary allowed under their position, according to Berry and Florino. Teachers and school administrators can also receive the raises, and in fact, at least 10 school employees will receive salary increases in excess of $5000 in FY05.
However, Connelly argued that instead of thumbing through the individual pay jumps of school employees, the bottom line salary totals detail the more telling story.
"Salaries have increased by a net $564,220 in four years. So what that means is that in four years, what we paid in teaching salaries has only gone up 6 percent. So that's why I say forget looking at individual salary increases. You have to look at the bottom line which only shows that 6 percent increase over four years. I think that shows good management," Connelly argued.
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