Trustees vote to give themselves a raise

Does anyone else find it unusual that our local trustee didn't reveal that she and her board colleagues just gave themselves a raise of more than $20,000?

The facts speak for themselves as I found them on the Internet. Sept. 7, a citizens' advisory committee met with the board's chair and vice-chair to provide input into the proposed honoraria amounts. In the end these raises were approved by the Peel District School Board.

The retroactive amount for current board members from Sept. 1, 2005 to Nov. 30, 2006 is $25,657.55. For the new term of office from Dec. 1, 2006 to Nov. 30, 2010, honoraria will be $26,011.80 per year. Additional duties of chair and vice-chair will receive increasing base amounts of $5,000 for the chair and $2,500 for the vice-chair. An additional amount based on enrolment of $5,000 for the chair and $2,500 for the vice-chair will also apply retroactively and for the incoming

board. And so it's clear that the Peel District School Board trustees found enough money to approve themselves a raise of more than $20,000 per year, while advising parents to write their MPPs complaining how underfunding had damaged their children's education, and demanding a change to the province's education system funding formula.

The Caledon Citizen is receptive to my suggestion to allow a Caledon trustee column in the paper once a month, should I be elected. I assure you that I'll be very up front with this type of information about how your money gets spent. The minute I accessed this information I loaded it onto my Positive Change Web site at www.stancameron.com.

Stan Cameron Candidate for Trustee Peel District School Board