Thursday, February 12, 2009

Mid-February update


Things are in flux on several fronts - including one new one. Vincent is still supposedly trying to round up teacher support for him staying around at school, trying to get teachers to lobby the principal on his behalf. An early morning argument between us helped Vincent be tardy again today - which could - esp. with his two excused absences earlier this week - nailing the lid on the coffin. Also, as we arrange for what should be - either way - final parent-teacher-student conferences with Vincent's - for now - teachers, we learned today what I expected - at least for one class - Although he did OK on a test in his science class - meaning he's been learning something in class - he has turned in absolutely no homework, projects, etc. for the past month - and so he is failing the class badly. We may hear from more teachers shortly (and/or we'll see them early next week - assuming he's still in school then). Also - we've been reading actually about the national church's financial problems. Although they've laid off people in offices here and there - this past spring - when you think they'd lay off another large amount of people - they took a risk and didn't do so. But then the depression hit with a vengeance - and giving and revenue from investments is down. So March 11 they may recommend more layoffs - again, maybe staffs of whole offices - probably not ours, since we got a big grant and they just let us hire an additional person. Nevertheless, some people around here are going to lose their jobs. Two other possibilities and one definite thing: No raises (which with inflation means de facto pay cuts) in 2010 (remember I got a decent size one this year including with my transfer) and - possibly - a 2 percent pay cut (maybe more for "professional" staff) and/or a week-long "furlough" (meaning you get a week of unpaid vacation - when? - and essentially a 2 percent pay cut). (These would presumably be instead of laying off a bunch more people - 75 out of 550 got laid off in the big layoff three years ago that I very narrowly averted.) We're going to be talking more about family stuff later today. We'll see what happens.

-- Perry

2 comments:

Perry said...

It turns out that across the Ohio River at one of our sibling agencies, they've already announced no raises this year and they just announced voluntary retirement buyouts for employees 55years or older.

Perry said...

Another rumor has it that 100 of the 400 or 450 folks at the Center will get laid off in April. We'll see.