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Hello again Bg9385:

I'm not being sarcastic when I say I appreciate your reply and perspective on this topic. My guess why the WSC proceeded the way it did was that they knew Mayor Avedisian was in favor of keeping the original $3.3 million in the budget despite the city council's decision, and in fact suggested that they'd have to restore the money, after all. That gave the school committee a sort of reassurance to negotiate and sign a deal.

Now, beyond that, there's Thornton's statement about not getting the issue on the council agenda in December. Ultimately, that decision -- like the one about budgeting the money -- is up to the city council, so what he's saying is certainly possible.

And as far as putting riders into a contract, as I said in another comment, the funding mechanism is the city council; it's a matter of longstanding legal precedent that any school contract is negotiated by the school committee and funded by the community. I would also imagine, if such language were put into a contract, that a city council could just decide not to pay for it.

[Hope you're sitting down for the next part.]

I can empathize with the teachers on this issue, because the new contract seems to be a fair one, where each side got something.

And that's the real shame of this whole thing, because the parties to the contract seem to have actually reached a good agreement -- and now the city council is shirking their responsibility.

They were warned about taking money out of the city budget for the teacher contract, and they did it anyway.