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School Board Member Blasts Media Coverage

May 20th, 2013 by WCBC Radio

In a wide ranging discussion on Monday's WCBC "Dave Norman Show"- school board vice president Laurie Marchini was critical of the radio stations coverage of the board on a number of fronts. One of those centered on the teachers pension shift. In 2012, the state put the burden of paying retired teachers’ pensions on the localities. Economically distressed counties such as  Allegany receive a disparity grant to cover the pension expense. However, according to the school board, due to the way the state computes the disparity grant, last year a pension bill of around $1.4 million received a $1.6 million grant. The board maintains that the difference, $144,364, has been kept by the county and not reinvested in education.  Marchini was a caller to WCBC’s “Dave Norman Show” Monday and repeated the board’s belief that the county has “pocketed” the money with no thoughts of its impact on the education budget.

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