On Sunday, June 20th the Journal News ran a front page “Print Exclusive” by Hannan Adely. It was an article about the school crossing guards in New Rochelle who work a lunch shift with no students to cross. Now that kindergarten is full day in New Rochelle, there is no need for the two hour lunch shift of 18 crossing guards citywide.
UPDATE: The Journal News article is now online.
In New Rochelle, school guards staff corners without children to cross
The crossing guard issue was first disclosed on this site. The Journal News gave Talk of the Sound credit for its original reporting which can be found here: Why Is New Rochelle Paying Over $100,000 for Guards to “Cross” Invisible Students?
Under the Journal News headline of “Crossing guards guiding no one” it says “Schedules unchanged despite end of half-day kindergarten”. The article was only available in print, but will be available online on Tuesday. I will link it up, when it becomes available.
UPDATED: The story is now up. It is the first story on the lohud.com home page. Here is the link. Look at all the comments –
http://www.lohud.com/article/20100622/NEWS02/6220303/In-New-Rochelle-school-guards-staff-corners-without-children-to-cross
The Journal News interviewed the city manager, Chuck Strome, who is quoted as saying “It’s a frustrating issue and it seems silly, but it is mandatory collective bargaining”. The Journal News visited five crossing guard posts and found they were staffed by their assigned crossing guards, who were reading, eating lunch and sitting on church steps or lawn chairs.
The Journal News interviewed the crossing guards who said that they would suffer if their hours were cut. The crossing guards are represented by the Civil Service Employees Associate Local 1860. Apparently, if the hours were reduced, they would not be entitled to unemployment pay. They do get pensions and sick time, the article says and the contract we posted also describes these benefits. It makes no sense to hire city workers out of pity when there is no need. I have heard that crossing guards don’t typically have a contract.
The article also says what our original article says; that the contract allows the city to change the schedule if the needs of the school district changes. They have not done so, though it remains unclear why.
The Journal News writer interview the Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Murphy. He lamented the amount of sick time the crossing guards take. The article lists 271 days for the 2009-2010 school year. The police department has to provide replacements when the crossing guards are out. The police officers or civil service officers (CSOs) are pulled from their regular locations to work the corners for the absent crossing guards. As I understand it, at any given time, there may be only 6 police officers on duty for the entire city, plus police officers have a much higher hourly rate than crossing guards.
My particular pet peeve on this aspect of the subject is that when a crossing guard is sick, the police officer does not arrive until well into the shift. I cringe to see the elementary children crossing themselves through the Pelham Road & North Avenue intersection. Even last week, during construction on the traffic light there, there was no crossing guard one day. The children crossed the street, often without parents or guardians. Plus the walk signal is a very dismal seven seconds, despite my request to have it extended.
After my initial post, I heard through the grapevine that this situation would be corrected by September. This article now says that the situation will remain as it is through the end of 2011, when the contract expires. What will it take to correct this?
Thank you Journal News for delving deeper into this story with interviews, photos and facts. Thank you for picking up a Talk of the Sound story and presenting it to your readership. (I am glad that I have a weekend subscription to the JN.) The average taxpayer wants to know where their hard earned money is going. These are the first steps in making our elected officials accountable. Bring back common sense. I hope this “Your Right to Know — Shining a light on public affairs” becomes a new feature to the Journal News.
This is a total waste of taxpayer money. It is a visible and foolish expenditure that the taxpayers of New Rochelle should not tolerate. What will it take to stop this waste?
News12 has picked up the NR crossing guard story
News 12 has now picked up the New Rochelle crossing guard story.
Click here:
http://www.news12.com/index.jsp?regionId=4
They say that it is ‘state law’ that forbids the changing of the hours. Chuck Strome is interviewed in his office.
How is it possible that they
How is it possible that they earn sick time and get a pension? With benefits like this, it’s no wonder New Rochelle’s taxed so much and always broke. Do they get to pad their last couple of years with OT so we can pay even more to them in retirement? Absolutely astonishing what New Rochelle wastes money on yet the city can’t pave a road from 1 end to the other.
We need to get rid of Bramson and Strome and I say lets “promote” them to the position of crossing guard!
If this is going to continue through next year, can the crossing guards at least pick-up some nearby garbage to at least make the areas look good? Or is that not a part of their contract? What a sad joke this is.
And 1 last thought on the subjest, whoever negotiated this contract on behalf of the city should be fired, immediately.
don’t forget the Board of Ed
The Board of Ed are the ones who originally wanted crossing guards. They got them, then, due to some state law, they were forced to turn over the guards to the City so that they are municipal employees not school district employees.
What I have asked of Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak and the Board of Education is why they did not consider this issue when they were working to create a Full-Day K program. I spoke to them. It was quite obvious to me that they had never even considered this issue and even after being informed saw no connection between the BoE and these guards. I did get the BoE to at least concur that the BoE did not want them there in the middle of the day with nothing to do and Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak said he would discuss the matter with Chuck Strome.
I find it hard to believe that NO ONE thought about the question of why guards would paid their full day rate when they were going to be needed for half the hours. Since when is it the job of any employer, let alone a tax-payer funded, employer to make sure that people get enough hours to qualify for unemployment benefits? Why does the article say these guards “scrape by” on $13,000 a year? Are we supposed to imagine that the sole source of income for the crossing guards is this money? Are any of them married? retired from other jobs? The article makes it sound like they are being paid close to nothing when, in fact, at $80 a day for 4 hours work they are getting paid a healthy $20 an hour plus some benefits and pension contributions.
I could have SOME sympathy for the crossing guards if I was not reading that their union rep is saying “we can’t let them take away our hours”. In other words she DEMANDS that her members be paid in perpetuity regardless of whether there is work for them to do and regardless of the overall financial condition of New Rochelle and the State government.
It is this attitude which has done more to discredit government unions than anything else.
Don Imus — Morning radio show – crossing guard story picked up
FYI — After the 9:00 news break, Don Imus led with the story of the NR school crossing guards. It was a brief story. TOS was not credited.
did they discuss it?
What did they say?
They discussed it briefly
The story led the show after the 9am news break. Charles McCord (sp?) mentioned the story and then Imus first mocked him and then they commented on the how it is another example of incredible waste of taxpayers money. They didn’t spend alot of time on it.