Last week, the Senate Ways and Means Committee released their proposed state budget for Fiscal Year 2020. All cities in Senator DiDomenico’s district received an increase in Chapter 70 funding from the proposal, with the Everett Public Schools receiving a total of $75,001,079— a $6 million increase over Fiscal Year 2019 funding levels.
Continue reading DiDomenico Announces Record Education Funding for Everett in Senate Budget
By Josh Resnek
The mayor announced with some fanfare at a meeting last week that reports the city is broke are “garbage” distributed by the city’s real and only perceived but unnamed adversary, the Leader Herald.
‘The city is not broke,” the mayor said to his colleagues in government last week.
This statement followed several weeks of mayoral posturing about the city’s financial condition in the wake of a spate of reports in the Leader Herald that all might not be well with the city’s finances.
Since Wynn Resorts began making in lieu of tax payments, the mayor has repeatedly touted the city’s solid financials, reports apparently backed up and certified by his Chief Financial officer Eric Demas.
However, during an interview given to the Independent and published last week, all is not what it might appear to be.
By Josh Resnek
The School Department is speeding ahead with efforts to hire back several dozen teachers and aids in order to shrink the size of classrooms which had been ballooning since the School Department cut 100 teachers and aids before the present school year began.
Although awaiting the city council’s affirmative action to release $2.5 million to make the hiring possible, the School Department was already in a major hiring mode, according to Assistant Superintendent of Schools Kevin Shaw.
The council is expected to approve the mayor’s request at its November 13 meeting.
Continue reading District Re-Hiring School Teachers in Order to Cut Classroom Size
By Josh Resnek
There is a story from antiquity that tells of Pompey the Great, the Roman general and leader who decided he was a better man than Caesar.
Pompey assembled his legions, an army that dwarfed that of Caesar’s. A great battle was scheduled between the two forces to determine who is the better man.
Pompey was so sure he was going to defeat Casear that he built a great tent that could seat 5000 people and a great throne for himself at the head of the victory table.
It was to have been an incredible dinner and celebration for Pompey.
What ended up happening?
Continue reading Mayor Reverses Decision on $2.5 Million; Orders Transfer of Money to EPS
By Josh Resnek
Who is trying to scare who?
The mayor’s notion about “scare tactics” being used to cause an uprising among parents and teachers in the school system as reported in last week’s Independent shows the extent to which the mayor can attempt to manipulate some of the news.
The mayor needed to get all this complaining off his chest, to let everyone know (those who aren’t his allies) how he is feeling.
It was mostly about $2.5 million that he is hesitating to allow the School Department to have even though it is the School Department’s funding gotten by Senator Sal DiDomenico.
The “crime” of not giving the funding to the schools is interpreted by the mayor as the high road – that is – the money shouldn’t be given to the schools and those complaining are traitors to the mayor’s brand of genius.