On December 13th, 2023, you chaired an Interim Finance Committee meeting regarding SB231. This bill is meant to give much-needed raises to workers at CCSD. Yet, 6 months after the bill passed the legislature, no one has seen a dime.

This meeting was the first opportunity to give at least some of these workers their raise. ESEA & Teamsters 14 members spoke directly to you about their financial hardships. They mentioned working multiple jobs, visiting food banks, and selling possessions to make ends meet. These are hardworking, blue-collar folks like most of us, who are buried under increasing costs and lowered wages.

After listening to their heartbreaking confessions, as chair, you removed the agenda item and refused to hear it. Your stated reason was that CCSD didn’t submit a complete plan. We find this misguided, Support Professionals ratified their contract, and CCSD submitted a plan that was intended to disperse these specific funds. The support professionals already bargained their contract, in good faith, and CCSD submitted a plan for them.

We believe that all workers deserve a raise, to keep up with exorbitant cost-of-living increases, and hope the teachers are able to bargain for a contract. We do not, however, believe that these blue-collar workers, who earn wages at or barely above the poverty line, should languish further in poverty while you wait to settle it.

You ran your campaign on being a union candidate. You, as leader of the State Democratic Party, assured us that you are here for labor and for the working class. Yet, when some of the poorest among us are reliant on your vote to survive, you have abandoned them.

We demand that you bring the vote back to the floor and disperse the funds to the support professionals who keep CCSD running. If you don’t, we assure you that we will no longer vote for you or endorse your candidacy.