GilfordGrok

To the Editor, GilfordGrok:

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 The Gilford Budget Committee should be commended for their work in trying to keep spending in line.

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During last week’s budget committee meeting, Gilford assistant superintendent Scott Isabelle questioned Skip Murphy’s assertion that the private sector commonly expects employees to share the added burden of ever growing health insurance. Mr. Isabelle suggested that companies are moving away from charging employees for their health insurance.

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I have a challenge; I’ll bet I can find a unicorn before he can produce a single private sector employee who is NOT contributing to their health care cost. There would have to be rules to keep things fair of course. He would not be able to look at people with the mega salaries like those found in the Gilford $uperintendent’s range but I would allow him to look at the high end of working family earners up to $100,000 (people that actually add value to their employers).

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Giving Mr. Isabelle the benefit of the doubt, I believe he read that companies are trending away from passing more of the added health insurance cost to their high end employees. That’s because they are already paying as much as $60 a week for their health insurance.

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Mr. Isabelle did get it exactly right when confronting Skip Murphy’s assertion that the employee has to pay. Mr. Isabelle correctly countered that it might be possible to save the same amount of money if the health plans were looked at for cost savings. Obviously Doug Lambert agreed with him because he appeared to favor reducing the budget by the proposed savings amount ($120,000) and let the School board work it out as Mr. Isabelle suggested.

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I found it puzzling that school board member Paul Blandford didn’t think it was fair to suggest that receiving free health insurance was actually a raise in pay to the employee. Later in the discussion he did however believe that it was fair to suggest that it would be a pay cut if an employee was required to contribute toward health insurance. Which way would you like it Mr. Blandford? This was as inconsistent as Mr. Blandford’s claims that the school board is looking out for the taxpayer too, which was clearly not evident in the nice deal they cut for the $uperintendent, a position the tax payers once voted to eliminate and clearly adds nothing to the quality of educating a child. 

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I keep hearing the phrase “protect our quality of life”. I have to ask exactly whose quality of life are we talking about? With 90% of the town’s budget accounting for salaries, benefits and special interest group projects, it’s pretty clear whose quality of life they are protecting!

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Terry Stewart
Gilford, NH