Well put! The Town of Reading is a business and like any other business planning on surviving it hasn't to make adjustments which includes restructuring. Regionalization is a step which will help the town's long term financial health, but we're only at the beginning. As a business owner, resident and mother with children in the school system I'm vested and would like to see more accountability among the committees who are suppose to be aiding the planning and development of this town rather than added road blocks.

David, would this model include performance-based salary increases for Town employees? I ask because it came up in another discussion here on Patch. I'd much rather see raises based on performance than what's written in a CBA. It would give a certain amount of budgeting flexibility during the lean years and an opportunity for greater rewards during boom years. Some sort of bonus structure could help lead to better handling of limited resources by providing incentives for best practices and increased efficiency and productivity.

In my opinion, we in Reading are extremely fortunate to have sound financial management. Both Peter H. and Bob L. do a terrific job in managing the budgets and finances. Our free cash accounts are a prime example of sound management. Our union employees/contracts have made significant progress in benefits cost sharing and eliminating costly other benefits. And look at what Jeff Z. did on the renewal of the trash contract. Big benefit to Reading. We have the proper people in place. Sure, there are always new ideas. While I may not totally agree with every decision, I nonetheless will place my faith in Bob and Peter for leading us in these difficult times, along with a sound Fin. Com.

Honestly, bonuses for public employees? While you can have a transparent system with clear cut criteria, how many nasty, irate Patch posts do you think will hit the minute the word gets out that a teacher, or a manager got a "bonus". Not even I am that naive to think that dog will hunt. It's nice to try to marry the efficiency of the private sector to the public, but we operate on very different levels when public dollars are being expended. Nice idea but probably not worth the aggrevation it will cause

You are more than likely right that the public sector is not ready for this. It may even be a bad idea, but I don't see how its not worthy of consideration. If there are defined, measurable goals that are clearly communicated to the community and endorsed by the electorate then why shouldn't municipal employees whose performance exceeds expectations be rewarded? We put an awful lot of pressure on our public employees to work harder, smarter and faster the way their private sector employees have been forced to do for years, but why should they? Pride? Pensions? Lifetime health care, if they are fortunate enough to make it to their 10 years of employment? Folks in town regularly defend our hard working town employees by pointing out how their compensation and benefits are close to the private sector. If that's true then why shouldn't they have some of the benefits of the private sector is well. Companies have bonus plans that not only reward individual performance but team and organizational performance too and everybody knows what the rules and guidelines to get those benefits are. If this model has created greater efficiency in the private sector it may in the public sector as well. I'm just trying to pause for a moment and think of running government in a different way. If that is naive, then so be it. I'll be the first to admit that this might not work, but since the way we do it now already solicits nasty, irate posts on Patch, what's the harm in considering the idea.

Teachers already get "bonuses". They're just called "stipends" for taking on extra roles like mentoring, curriculum committee chairs, team leaders and department heads (pages 156, paragraph 1 Town Meeting packet for FY12). And they're collectively bargained values, not performance values.

If Town employees contribute to the "profitability" of the Town (bringing in costs lower than revenues collected) then I, for one, would consider a bonus structure to reward that behavior instead of promising an automatic, collectively bargained step and COLA increase based on doing your job, not necessarily doing your job well. Keep in mind that managers should not "pad" their budgets to make reaching this goal easier. And leadership should not collect more than necessary to fund operations. And we should look very closely at historical expenditures per department. The reason we have such a strong Reserve account is because, for the most part, we've been spending less than is collected. This may not work, as Mr. Mancuso pointed out, but why just dismiss it out of hand. Maybe there's a way to make it work. We have some smart people working for us that might be able to structure this for the benefit of all.

The fundamental flaw with this idea is the notion that running a town is like running a business. It's not. While they can share common principals and best practices and strive to stretch resources, the over all goal for a business is to create profits for it's share holders. The mission of municipal government is to provide services, most of which are mandated and not based on the "customer's" ability to pay. If a company decides to innovate and finds that the program didn't work, they reassign, or worse, lay off the employees. We don't have that option in local government without massive service disruptions. I am not against innovation or trying new things or reinventing a new mouse trap. I just think that when we are struggling to maintain basic services within the constraints of 2 1/2 introducing a bonus pay structure for employees is not practical or politically viable. I do appreciate this forum and the discussion it generates.

Couldn't agree more about the value of the forum and discussion. Government is certainly not designed to create profits the way a corporation might be, but it might argued that profits are only a byproduct of adding value which seems applicable to both the private and public sectors. Your point about mandates eating up most of our resources is spot on. The question of whether what is mandated is actually accomplishing what it intends to accomplish is another discussion entirely. And, I don't want to twist your words, but the observation that mandates disregard the ability of a "customer" to pay, is also worthy of more conversation, but that may touch on the time-worn political arguments about the "role" of government and how it operates and it was not my intention to engage in that discussion in this column. As for layoffs, aren't we cutting staff that we cant afford and searching for better ways to do government business? While the mission of government might be closer to that of a non-for-profit organization than a for profit one, I'm not really sure that I buy the notion that running a government or a non-profit, or a for-profit business are all that much different than one another. Each has a source of income/revenue and expenses, each has customers, each provides a service or services. I realize this is an over-simplification in terms of the way things are, but this might be one of those times where solving our problems requires changing how we look at them.

Great forum for sure, but I take great exception to equating stipends to bonuses. With the earning of a stipend comes additional time, effort and overall responsibility...bonus it is not.

The town needs to adopt a more business like model because the residents and business owners are it's customers. The town employees receive increases based on their contract and there would be a different attitude if those salary increases were based heavily on performance. In regards to the push for better customer service, the initial reaction from Town Hall was dismissive since "they're not a business." In regards to teacher's, I've seen how hard they work and a stipend is not a bonus. There are contractual issues in regards to teachers receiving bonuses. According to the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education "Teacher tenure, dismissal, demotion, removal and other personnel decisions are not tied to teacher performance in Massachusetts." That is in regards to Massachusetts as a whole it is not my opinion towards the teachers in Reading. Just like any job though, positive performance does drive us forward and is certainly something to consider in regards to the Town.

Many years ago, a kind Reading gentleman / philanthropist by the name of Arnold Rubin...owned Atlantic Supermarket, left a sum of money as an endowment to the Reading Schools for a nominal annual award for an exemplary teacher. This award was passed out at Town Meeting for a few years after his death and if I recall correctly, there were two awards issued for a few years. But the teachers association had a hard time recognizing just one or two as exemplary, so the award was cancelled. I have no idea what the money is being used for now, although it was not being used for the exact intent that is was left to the town. Implementing performance based rewards is a great idea and I fully support its merits, but it probably still not workable. And I am not sure we could ever devote the correct level of resources to manage such a program effectively. Poorly implemented programs can have a real negative reaction if fairness is perceived to be minimized.

Fred, just a minor correction to your previous post, the gentleman who you speak of, his name was Arnold Berger and he owned Reading Liquors. Nonetheless, he was a wonderful man (as you pointed out) who donated so much to Reading back in the 1980s.
BTW Karl, I am a working member of the DPS also, I was just trying to clarify the difference between a stipend and a bonus. I was not at all surprised by your reply to my post vs your reply to another frequent poster on Patch regarding this subject...I'll try and not feel offended.

Karl:
Part of the reason teachers want nothing to do with merit pay is simply because they get salary increases, longevity bonuses, and step increases. Good deal! Merit pay amounts to a fundamental change in a dymanic that typically pays teachers substantially more than what a community can afford. Its not uncommon for teachers salaries to be double what is truly affordable by a community.

Confused? Obama believes in merit pay, Patrick believes in who knows what, and the Mass Commissioner of Ed, Mitchell Chester appears to believe in merit pay. Of course Charlie Baker was a merit pay guy and the MTA bankrolled much of Patrick's campaign so expect no change on the merit issue.

As for doing more for the same or less pay, that's my personal experience as well.

The real problem with the merit issue is that you can't engage in the dialog without being labeled a teacher basher. I suspect your experience with teachers is like mine. Some are good and even great, thus the concept of merit. Those that fail our kids should be cast aside and asked to look for other employment. The next issue is the manner in which lay offs occur. First-in, last-out. Teachers with lots of tenure who so happen to be very expensive and happen to be doing a lousy job in the classroom are next to impossible to extract from employment in a district. Higher cost per child and less capable teachers are the end result given the MTA position on merit.

Hope all is well.

Dave

John, thanks for correcting my post. You are indeed correct and I had the wrong person...sorry for the confusion. Guess I'm really getting "OLD". Thanks again for taking the time to set the record straight.

Fred, you are still as sharp as a tack and one of the most respected voices in town government, thank you for all of your years of tremendous service to our town.