Imposing binding arbitration on local school committees would have significant impact on local representative government, recruitment of candidates and conflict of interest. Schools are a community responsibility and school committees are the local authority to deal with that responsibility. This local authority is a vital part of our representative government structure.

Teacher salaries comprise 85 to 90 percent of school budgets. If you remove that oversight from the school committee, what’s left - how many pencils can we buy this year? We all know it is getting more and more difficult to recruit candidates for any office. Would you serve on a board of any public or private agency when you have no say over 90 percent of the budget? I certainly wouldn’t. School committees in such a position would be subject to all the blame with no responsibility to effect any change. There’s a good slogan for recruiting candidates!

And who will the arbitrator be? The scenario described in the ProJo editorial of Oct. 20 suggests a whole new level of blatant conflict of interest with the appointment of former union employees.
Susan Greene
Jamestown