NEA "Pay Cut" Analysis Hostage Day Count: Day 7

Still nothing from the NEA so the "pay cut" analysis hostage day count continues. Day 7 is now history.

We eagerly await a response! The offer to post it here on Anchor Rising remains open.

Here is our blog post describing how there is NO "pay cut." It even includes spreadsheets with documentation of data sources and assumptions for public scrutiny!

Prove us wrong and we will admit to it. Or 'fess up that your claim about East Greenwich teachers taking a "pay cut" is false. It is crossroads time for the NEA.

Until we see a quantitative financial analysis response from the NEA, we will continue with daily blog posts noting that their "pay cut" analysis is being held hostage at NEARI against the wishes of East Greenwich taxpaying residents.

FURTHER CLARIFYING ISSUES IN THE "PAY CUT" DEBATE:

In response to a comment in an earlier post, I offer these further thoughts:

Ken conveniently ignores that it was the NEA who first turned this claim about "pay cuts" into a PUBLIC debate. They did it in the context of trying to influence public opinion during a labor contract negotiation.

They made it public when some of their member teachers made and continue to make PUBLIC claims about "pay cuts" to East Greenwich residents via strike signs, comments to parents at open houses, letters to the editor, etc.

They started a PUBLIC debate but now that they have been called on it in an equally public way - and been asked to justify their public claim - they have gone into hiding. How convenient.

So perhaps Ken can explain why he is comfortable letting the NEA off the hook after THEY started the PUBLIC debate.

It is also a fantasy to claim that the same labor negotiation process which allowed them to make PUBLIC claims to town residents in the first place suddenly restricts them from responding publicly to justify their position. Perhaps Ken can justify why NEA members can still write letters to the editor as recently as last week reiterating their "pay cut" claim but he thinks labor negotiations restrict them from providing analytical proof to support the ongoing PUBLIC claim they continue to make right now in public forums like newspaper opinion pages or in quotes for interviews found in newspaper articles.

And isn't it interesting that some people are so eager to question the legitimacy of an activist concerned citizen digging into issues by researching and gathering together publicly-available information? Isn't that exactly what America is about? Isn't that what self-government is about?

I am further struck by how negative responses like Ken's love to use phrases like "made up figures" and "slanted facts." Instead he will only find satisfaction in words from politicians and government bureaucrats - as long as it is delivered on their letterheads!

But nobody, including Ken, can offer any specific fact-based comments which identify what exactly is made up or slanted in my analysis:

• Is it when I copied 10 historical salary numbers for 2006-07 from 1 salary table in the recently expired and publicly-available contract?

• Or copied 2 historical co-pay percentages for 2006-07 off that same contract?

• Or asked the School Department for publicly-available information on the actual 2006-07 and 2007-08 costs of family and single person health insurance premiums for teachers, a total of 4 additional historical numbers?

• Or used the School Department's assumed annual growth rate for health insurance premiums during the next two years, another 2 numbers?

• Or took the latest School Committee 3-year offer for salary step increases (3 numbers, 1 for each year) and co-pay percentages (3 more numbers, 1 for each year), as quoted previously in a public newspaper, and used them after confirming they were accurate?

Bluntly, those are the ONLY essential pieces of information needed to do the analysis and derive the NO "pay cuts" conclusion I did. 24 confirmable data points, 16 of which are documented historical data, all of which came from just 3 sources. It doesn't come any more easily verifiable than that! This is not rocket science.

In other words, some analyses are built on assumptions about assumptions and are, therefore, subject to analytical manipulation.

This analysis debunking the "pay cut" claim is most certainly not that kind of analysis. Which means that anybody could independently confirm every primary assumption used in my analysis. And the analysis could be done by any student who successfully passed Finance 101.

Instead, all the opposition can do is engage in name-calling.

And yes, Ken, I did make it through 5th grade! Even made it through Finance 101 at business school!

So we return to the issue at hand: The NEA has made and continues to make its "pay cut" claim central to its PUBLIC relations campaign in East Greenwich during the current contract negotiations time period. Their "pay cut" claim has been shown to be false here on Anchor Rising, using verifiable data from public sources - not just unverifiable words like the NEA prefers to use. Anchor Rising has invited the NEA to back up their public claim with facts, even to post it on this blog site. They refuse. Yet the NEA is known nationwide for its ability to play hardball politics well. So if the NEA really had the data which discredited an outspoken public critic, why would they hold back sharing it publicly? What could the NEA be afraid of? Could it be that maybe - just maybe - their "pay cut" claim is false and they know it?

The ball is in the NEA's court.

Or, to have a little fun with this from a musical perspective, the NEA is at a crossroads.