"I'M A $2,000 GIVER": BISD'S POWERS PLAYS SANTA IN JUNE

"I'll give you all I got to give if you say you'll love me too
I may not have a lot to give but what I got I'll give to you...
From "Can't Buy Me Love" by the Beatles

By Juan Montoya
Most of us shy away from attending things like budget meetings either at the city, county or school district. But the budget meetings at the Brownsville Independent School District are turning out to be eye-opening affairs.
The district's board of trustee and the administration are under the gun to produce a budget by June 19 and are scrambling to make ends meet.
But one of the things that has emerged from the budget workshops and negotiations is that BISD board president wants to pass a budget that will give district employees a $2,000 stipend.
Those who have attended the workshops have often heard Otis assert that he is "a giver" and that the proposed stipend is very much in line with his character and personality.
Now, we must remember that this is an election year at the BISD and that Powers has a very definite interest in the outcome of the election since the late Enrique Escobedo's seat as welll as trustees Cesar Lopez and Luci Longoria's positions are at stake.
Doubtless, Lopez will vote for the stipend.
Whether Longoria will or not depends on what the effect of the proposal will have on the district's finances. Already there is talk that there will be a candidate against Lopez, and Longoria is already being challenged by Mary Rey, a prohibitive long shot who will have a hard time explaining her influence on her sons, both incarcerated for a murder associated with a botched drug deal.
It's interesting that Powers voted – along with Jose Chirinos, Lopez, Minerva Peña – to raise BISD Policy-Records Management Department Director Martin Arambula's salary from $75, 940 to $90,000 despite the fact that the increase would put Arambula's salary above most school principals.
His old salary already had him above 20 of the 58 campus principals at the BISD.
His new salary now has him making more than 52 campus principals of the 58 in the district.
Now, as others before us have said, a campus principal has to be an administrator over with scores of faculty, students, paralegal and professional staff, maintenance, teachers' aides, issues like discipline, attendance, extracurricular activities, curriculum, security, campus morale, testing, and a lot more that we probably don't even know about.
It would not be a stretch to think that the Powers Stipend may be a way to pacify the furor of the principals and other professionals who have more responsibilities than Martin and are making considerably less.
Maybe Powers can prove the Beatles wrong. Maybe you can buy love.