PATCH LETTER: Mayor Cahill Defends City's Investments In Schools

The following Letter to Patch was submitted by Beverly Mayor Michael Cahill:

BEVERLY, MA — With city and school leaders currently negotiating contracts with most of our public employees unions, it is important to share the following.

We deeply value and respect all our employees. Since city government's core functions are to provide services for residents and maintain and improve infrastructure, paying our employees' wages, health care, and pension costs rightly makes up the largest part of our budget. We remain committed to paying our employees fairly and as well as we can.

Our educators voiced at the beginning of current contract negotiations the need for better compensation, to attract and retain outstanding teachers and paraprofessionals. Following thorough research, we agree, and we have dedicated $5.1 million in new city money this year, as well as significant new money over three years to offer our educators likely the best contract in city history. With our offer, every teacher in Beverly will, depending on where they are on the salary schedule, receive an $11,262 - $21,590 raise over three years. As a percentage, this offer represents a pay raise between 13.4 - 39.2%. This brings our teachers more in line with Danvers Public Schools, the district to which we have been consistently compared during these negotiations.

We also strongly agree that our paraprofessionals need to be paid better. Therefore, we have offered our paras an immediate $4,000 to $6,000 market adjustment plus 3% additional this year, followed by 4% and 3.5% pay increases over the next two years for an annual wage increase between 27.4% - 59% over three years, in line with communities across the North Shore. In year three, our paraprofessionals’ hourly wages will be between $25.66 - $33.94 per hour.

Further, every Beverly employee who works 20+ hours per week qualifies for our health plan, with the city covering more of the plan's cost than Danvers and most every community around us. Specifically, Beverly pays 80% while Danvers pays 70%. That additional 10% is worth approximately $3,200 this year for a family plan, keeping $3,200 more of many Beverly employees' wages in their paychecks than Danvers employees.

To help pay for the compensation package we've offered our educators, and to settle new city union contracts currently being negotiated, while continuing to deliver high quality services across the city and balance our budget, the city expects to zero out our roads and sidewalks line in two steps (this year and next), while committing to use cash reserves to fund roads and sidewalks improvements moving forward.

We will also recoup the $1.4 million in untapped tax levy that provided a measure of property tax relief the past two years — tax relief needed by Beverly homeowners and understood to be temporary. This will return Beverly to the Proposition 2½ tax levy limit.

NOTE: Of $8.4 M new spending in the City’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget, $6.3 M is going to education (BPS - $5.6 M, Essex NS Tech - $688,000), while $742,000 is required city pension and other benefits obligation, leaving $1.36 M for all other city departments and needs, including city employees’ compensation.

During this century's two recessions, Massachusetts cut aid to Beverly by over $7 million, destabilizing our city budget, putting more burden on Beverly property owners. In 2002, state aid made up 22% of our annual city budget — today it makes up only 14%. Beverly's homeowners, who in 2002 paid $41 Million in property taxes each year, are now paying $98 Million. In 2002, our homeowners' taxes made up 53% of the city budget — today that is 62%. In this environment, during my 11 years as your mayor, we have increased city spending on our schools by $22 Million, while state aid has increased $8 Million.

A word on the importance of reserve funds. Last year, the city and schools together spent $2.2 M per week ($114.4 M annually) on wages and health care for our employees — a number that we know will increase with the new contracts. We are required to spend an additional $13.8 M per year for pensions for our employees and retirees, over $9 M on debt service, and more.

To be able to deliver critical services throughout a three-year recession, we need to build and maintain our reserves. By definition, reserves are set aside so during a recession we can continue to educate our children, keep our residents and our property safe, our libraries and Senior Center open, our Veterans Services, Parks, and Public Health Departments staffed, our streets plowed, our trash and recycling picked up, and more. Using reserves now to pay for recurring costs would only serve to erode the financial strength we have worked hard together to create and likely lead to layoffs and severe cuts to critical services during the next economic downturn.

We've managed our reserves according to best financial practices. While maintaining an appropriate level of cash reserves, we've tapped them to address one time spending needs: new fire department ladder and engine trucks, library elevator repairs, new DPW garage roof, new electrical switches at the high school, new 911 emergency dispatch equipment, new high school softball fields, track and turf field with lights and stands, and more.

Beverly's reserves today equate to almost 18% of our operating budget, while financial best practices call for 13-23%. We must not deplete our reserves to fund recurring operating budget costs.

You have entrusted your local elected officials and city and school leadership with running our city and making Beverly the best hometown it can be. I am grateful every day to you for this honor and mindful of the responsibility this brings. To our educators, many of you my friends and neighbors, I have always valued and respected you. Public education is a part of me — I am a product of the Beverly Public Schools, and most of you know I taught school for nearly a decade.

We have listened to you intently. We have worked hard to respond to you. We have offered you a truly outstanding contract that makes the market corrections we all agree are needed. Our compensation offer will make you among the best paid educators on the North Shore.

We have extended ourselves to the limit to properly compensate Beverly teachers and paraprofessionals without jeopardizing our ability to provide the services and investments our residents need across all the obligations of city government. You are our partners in educating our children, and I respectfully urge you to recognize the good faith and commitment represented in our offer.