Senior Center Budget? Resident Speaks Up
Senior Center Level Services Proposed Budget – Charge Seniors for Trash Pickup
Senior Center Level Services Proposed Budget – Charge Seniors for Trash Pickup
The Senior Center presented their budget for level services to the Finance Committee. This budget gives the Senior Center Director a 26.5% increase in salary and the Outreach Coordinator an increase of 24.8% with an additional ten hours per week for a total of forty hours per week. Therefore, with an additional twenty hours of staff of time the center will NOT be open any additional hours but only the FIVE hours as it is now.
Compare this to Natick and Westwood whose Directors work forty hours per week and their centers are open 8.5 hours a day and 7.5 hours per day, respectively. Or the Directors of the Centers in Sudbury and Franklin who work 35 hours per week and whose Centers are open 7 and 7.5 hours per day, respectively.
Further, the response of the Chairman of the Finance Committee was astonishing – not that we need to keep a level funded budget but rather that he “threw out” what if we charged seniors for trash pickup? He suggested that some of the money would go to the Senior Center and some to the General Fund.
Is the philosophy of the Finance Committee if you go above the level funded guideline we will get the money from the residents so that you obtain whatever you ask for, even a more than 25% increase in your salary and pension in this difficult fiscal time?
Seniors citizens should not be charged for trash pickup to give someone a more than 25% increase in their salary and pension.
Who will stop this runaway spending -- the Selectmen who oversee the Senior Center Budget or the Finance Committee?
Liz, perhaps you should run for FIN COM to use your suggestions for the positive instead of rejecting ideas that people work very hard on while using their free time to work on FIN COM
holliston resident | 2011-03-26 16:54:02
Liz, You once again view a proceeding through your blinders and see only what you wish to see. The Finance Committee routinely discusses several budget scenarios with each department. Such a discussion is called "doing our job" and it is unfortunate that you are "astonished" that we did the same thing with the Council on Aging. You conveniently left out the OTHER discussions we had--particularly the ones about level funding and the proposed salary adjustments--in order to try and once again mislead the public about the discussion that took place in an attempt to further your "cause." The Finance Committee has not taken any vote or made any recommendation on the COA budget. For anyone reading this misleading commentary who would like to know the complete content of the discussion, feel free to come to our meetings (Tuesdays, 7:30pm, Town Hall Room 105), or email the committee at fincom@hollistonfincom.com.
Ken Szajda | 2011-03-26 09:34:54
Does anyone know what the history of pay increases is for these people, or how their pay compares to similar positions in surrounding towns?
Mark | 2011-03-26 08:49:42