Candidate name, town: Jim Gettens, Sterling
Position sought: Representative to the Wachusett Regional School District Committee
Like many of you, especially those on fixed or limited incomes, I am a long-suffering Wachusett Regional School District taxpayer. Since fiscal 2010, WRSD total student enrollment has fallen by 754, from 7,493 to 6,739, a full 10%. That is equivalent to 50.27 empty classrooms given the WRSD’s claimed student-teacher ratio of 15:1, yet the WRSD Committee and successive superintendents have failed to implement budget cuts and reductions in force authorized by Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 71, Sections 41 and 42. Instead, WRSD budgets ballooned from $81.3 million in fiscal 2015 to $107 million for fiscal 2023, or 25%, an insult to every district taxpayer.
The WRSD overspent its authorized fiscal 2022 budget by $1.6 million. Moreover, the WRSD failed to submit its fiscal 2021 audit to MassDESE as required by 603 Code of Massachusetts Regulations 10.10. That audit is now one year overdue. The WRSD’s required fiscal 2022 audit was not completed and submitted on time — March 31, 2023 — either. That is inexcusable.
The WRSD employs approximately 1,000 individuals. They aren’t all essential by a longshot. As examples, the WRSD employs multiple occupational therapists, a certified occupational therapy assistant, a physical therapist, and a physical therapy assistant listed to the Central Office or districtwide. The therapists’ salaries range from $73,619 to $100,971. An in-house WRSD occupational- physical therapy clinic costing taxpayers about $500,000 per year in salaries is an outright abuse.
The superintendent and others down the chain have incentives to add employee bloat because their salary increase requests are based, in part, on the numbers they supervise. It’s time to end that cycle.
School superintendents are to their school committees what corporate CEOs are to their boards of directors. “When seeking directors, CEOs don’t look for pit bulls. It’s the cocker spaniel that gets taken home,” said Warren Buffett. Sterling taxpayers don’t need another WRSD Committee cocker spaniel. If elected, I won’t be one.
My wife, Wendy, and I are longtime Sterling residents. I have a B.A. in history and philosophy from The College of William & Mary and earned a J.D., with honors, from Boston College Law School. I was an insurance defense trial lawyer and an Army Reserve officer. I am an Iraq War veteran. I am now retired and pursuing many avocations.
