The Sun Journal reported recently that the Auburn School Committee had voted to give Superintendent Katy Grondin a three-year contract, with a raise each year. Those raises total $6,000, boosting her pay to $121,000 annually. That comes just months after Auburn school bus drivers were asked to give up their health insurance, pay raises and other benefits to provide $300,000 in savings or face having their jobs contracted out.
Professional school bus drivers, responsible day in, day out, for the safety of our children, do not make Grondin’s exorbitant salary.
The drivers offered up raises, and other contractual items, while presenting the option of another health care carrier that would have saved Auburn schools $100,000 annually. Their efforts were ignored, the claim being that the savings were not enough, and the committee voted to contract out the drivers’ jobs.
The committee chose to sacrifice 25 drivers’ jobs so that a new budget would pass, yet the most disgusting act was still to come. They voted to lavish the superintendent with a pay raise every year and 100 percent paid health care. Sacrificing the jobs of 25 workers, members of the community, taking away modest income and robbing them of their health care in the name of so-called cost savings only to reward one person handsomely is shameful.
School committee members who voted against the increases should be applauded, while the rest should hang their heads and do the right thing — resign immediately.
Residents of Auburn should make note come election time.
George Edwards, Lewiston
Send questions/comments to the editors.
