Merrimack Valley

Pay issue comes to a boil

By Mark Vogler
mvogler@eagletribune.com
Published: September 8, 2008

LAWRENCE — School Committee member Samuel Reyes blames an acrimonious executive session with Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy over his salary as a reason why 31 other school employees didn't get the 3 percent pay raise that Laboy was initially denied.

But Reyes, one of three members who opposed those increases in a 3-3 deadlocked decision, said he plans to change his vote and expects the employees to receive the same raise that was awarded recently to Laboy "on a technicality."

The committee is expected to revisit the pay issue when it convenes Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Hall of the School Committee, 255 Essex St.

"When I voted 'no,' I did it because of what was going on," Reyes said of the Aug. 21 closed- door meeting in which he said Laboy threatened to go home at one point. "I just wanted to get out of there. I was frustrated with the hostile environment the superintendent put us under."

Reyes was among a majority of School Committee members who twice voted to deny Laboy a pay raise.

But Mayor Michael Sullivan, who chairs the School Committee, said that Laboy will get the pay raise automatically after receiving an opinion from School Committee attorney Naomi Stonberg that Laboy was entitled to the salary increase because of language in his contract.

Reyes said the reversal of the decision on Laboy's pay raise will not influence the vote on the pay raises for nearly three dozen Lawrence school administrators and nonunion office personnel.

"I have to support it," Reyes said.

"We gave everybody a raise. They deserve a raise this year. Not because the superintendent got his on a technicality," he said.

Those people who didn't get the raise include Lynn Catarius, director of assessment; Anne Marie Stronach, food services director; Kevin McCarthy, plant and facilities director for Lawrence public schools; Long Nguyen, IT director; Kevin Clement, school safety manager who also oversees transportation; and Mark Rivera, urban affairs liaison to Laboy.

Rivera's sister is School Committee member Priscilla Baez, who abstained from a vote on the employee pay raise because of a potential conflict of interest. She would have been the tie-breaker.

To enable Baez to vote on pay raises for all 31 school employees, except for her brother, the mayor proposed separating their proposed increases from Rivera.

Sullivan, School Committee Vice Chairman Gregory Morris and Peter Larocque supported the salary increases.

School Committee members Reyes, Martina Cruz and James Vittorioso voted against the pay raises.

"I think they are deserving, but economic times make it very unpalatable for the working poor in the city of Lawrence to accept the fact these people are getting enormous raises every year," said Vittorioso.

"What you got to do is stop the every-year raises. How can we as a School Committee justify to the poor people of Lawrence that the school personnel get a raise every year? When does the bleeding stop?" he asked.

"Personally, I think it will pass, and I think most of them are highly qualified. But the price of education is too much for the poor citizens of Lawrence, some who are working two jobs to put food on the table for their families. These are people who are eating chicken and spaghetti instead of steak," Vittorioso said.

Rivera stands a chance to get a whopping pay hike even if the committee rejects the proposed pay raises for the 31 employees.

Laboy has a pending proposal that would reclassify his job to special assistant to the superintendent. It received overwhelming support from the committee during first reading and could be ratified at next month's meeting.

Rivera currently makes a little more than $54,000 a year, the current pay for a specialist at the Step 6 level. If his job is reclassified to a management position, it would boost his pay to more than $67,000 | about a $13,000 raise.

Committee Vice Chairman Morris, who supported the pay raises for Laboy and the other employees, expressed frustration with the superintendent at the last meeting when he questioned Laboy about the re-classification of Rivera's current job.

"The classification would be manager or specialist," Laboy said.

"I'd like to know for sure," Morris told the superintendent.

Reyes and other committee members say they are troubled by Laboy's reluctance to provide basic information to the board on questions like that.

Meanwhile, secrecy continues to shroud the recent executive session in which Laboy and the 31 school employees were denied their pay raises.

Laboy has refused to comment on the executive session, suggesting that divulging the information would constitute "a violation of my rights."

Sullivan promised to release minutes of the executive session as early as last week.

But 10 days after the vote was taken, he failed to accommodate a request by The Eagle-Tribune for minutes to that meeting.

He also promised to provide a list of the employees who failed to receive pay raises. But he never provided the information. The Eagle-Tribune later obtained a copy of that document from another source.

When the School Committee met in executive session two weeks ago, the mayor instructed members not to discuss anything about the meeting with reporters, according to several School Committee members.

Larocque sent out an e-mail to several reporters saying he would not discuss his vote taken in executive session until after the minutes were released.