Joyce Bales get a 'political' rose from North County Times

The radical right agenda driven troika of the North County Times editorial staff has given Joyce Bales a very undeserved and very politically motivated rose for her offer to finally agree to take the same percentage pay cut as she was demanding of VUSD employees.

Of course it took her weeks to agree to take the cut she demanded of employees.

When she first told teachers to take the 5% pay cut (2% in salary schedule reduction and 3% in unpaid days off), the VTA bargaining team asked the district bargaining team if Bales would take the same cut. The district team said sure that would be no problem. They went to her to get her official OK and she said no way. She was not going to take any pay cut.

Only after the teachers brought the matter to the public's attention at a school board meeting did she agree to take the same percentage pay cut. She was embarrassed into the action.

She did not lead by example. She did not try to find a common ground way to get our district to fiscal stability during a time of cut backs. No she decrees, others must follow. Her rules and decrees only apply to employees not herself.

Read the North County Times editorial staff's comments about giving Bales this phony political rose here:


http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_3009ca3f-7bd8-59d1-bd0b-9cb61992bb55.html

My comments to the NCTimes editorial writers posted after the article are below:


con no more said on: February 1, 2010, 4:11 am
Joyce Bales VUSD superintendent should get a raspberry not a rose. NCTimes editors know this. The editors are giving Joyce Bales a rose for political reasons.

Bales 'agreed' to take the same pay cut as she was demanding of others only after it became public that she had initially refused to the same pay cut. She was finally embarrassed into the action when her one sided demand became public knowledge.

Had she offered up front to take the pay cut BEFORE bargaining, BEFORE her demands that employees unilaterally take a pay cut, then I would offer her a rose. Even better she could even have voluntarily reduced her salary before she finished bargaining agreement was reached with employees. Then she would have shown true leadership and truly been worthy of a real rose rather than this phony one politically motivated one.

It should also be mentioned that the 5% pay cut in yearly salary will affect lower paid employees of the district FAR more than Joyce Bales, one of the higher paid superintendents in our San Diego County.

Lower paid employees have far less actual and percentage wise discretionary income after paying for housing, food, transportation and medical than do highly paid folks like Bales.

The 5% cut will take a huge percentage of the discretionary income of lower paid teachers and custodians but will hardly affect Bales. In some cases a 5% cut will take up as much as 50% of the discretionary money of low paid employees. The overpaid superintendent will hardly notice the 5% hit.

This differential effect on the amount of money that is left over after a worker pays the bare minimum of necessary bills to live is why straight percentage cuts are so unfair to lowest paid workers and usually (except for Bales) so easy for overpaid superintendents to offer to take for themselves during bargaining.