The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

PAGE 4, WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 22, 1982, WHITBY FREE PRESS whitby, w zm Voice of the County Town Michael Ian Burgess, The only Whitby newspaper independently owned and operated by Whitby LPub Publisher - Managing Editor residents for Whitby residents. blished every Wednesday by M.B.M. Publishing and Photography Inc. Phone 668-6111 The Free Press Building, 13 Brock Street North, P.O. Box 206, Whitby, Ont. MICHAEL J. KNELL Community Editor ELIZABETH NOZDRYN Advertising Manager Second Class Mail Registration No. 5351 No one's saying they don't deserve a raise, but we'd like to see them show some fiscalleadership It has come to our attention that the trustees of the Durham Board of Education are considering giving themselves a 39 per cent salary increase at the beginning of the next term. The board is considering upping the salaries of its 20 members over a three-year period. This will take their earnings from about $7,200 a year to about $12,000 in 1985. The stipend for the chairman will rise to about $18,000 over the same period. Arguments in favor of the increase are many. Firstly, trustee salaries were frozen in 1974 by the provincial government. For the size of board it is, Durham has long since reiched Its ceiling. There are probably very few newsmen in the Toronto area who haven't been turning over the Susan Nelles case recently. And I'm sure that thoughtful members of the general public have been having simi- lar second thoughts. Susan Nelles, just for the record, is the nurse who was charged, but later cleared, in the deaths of four infant patients at a Toronto hospital, after being pilloried in the press and over the airwaves by people who, by and large, simply reported the due process of law. In late August, after 14 months of mental anguish, Dr. James Nelles, the nurse's father, died from the effects of a heart attack two weeks earlier. Dr. Nelles- was a Belleville pediatrician, respected, even loved, by the community he served. By all the processes we defend in parliamentary democracies, Nurse Nelles has been innocent from the very start. When she was charged with the murders of four infants, she was innocent until proven guilty. She remained innocent, of course, when she was discharged following a preliminary hearing this Spring, because the evidence was deemed circumstantial and flawed. Being innocent is as absolute as being pregnant: you are or you aren't. But what she and her family have suffered, and suffer now, despite her innocence, is beyond mere words to describe. And it cannot help but raise serious doubts about both the legal process and the way we report on it. Susan Nelles is suing the Attorney General of Ontario and the Metro Police Force for malicious prosecution. The government meanwhile, despite her innocence, has refused to pay any part of her legal bill, which is rumoured to be astronomical. Her father, before he died, was disturbed by the fact that the police would pay a suspected killer, not yet convicted, $100,00 to lead them to the bodies of the victims but that the same public purse could not be pried open for a citizen who was hopelessly in debt after establisiing her innocence. Colleagues in Belleville told the Canadian Press that Dr. Nelles was the kind of specialist who 'never refused to get up in the middle of the night to go out to see a sick child." In the eyes of parents at least, there can be no higher accolade than that. Few of us would doubt that the charges against his daughter led directly to the heart attack that killed him at the age of 56 when much of his life should have yet been to come. Few of us can doubt that what has happened to Dr. Nelles and his family is wrong. But none of us seem to know what to do to rightthat wrong, or equally important, prevent another one. That's not news but that too is reality. Salaries have not even risen to keep up with in- flation, proponerits of the idea point out. While they readily admit that being a board member is not a full-time job, they do point out that they have regional respo-nsibilities similar to those carried out by mem bers of Durham Regional Council. A member of regional council is currently paid about $13,000 a year and trustees point out that their pay scale is more similar to that received by a local councillor performing local duties. It cannot be reasonably argued that trustees deserve no increase at ail for their labors. But the catch-up situation they will have to sell to the public is going to be a bitter plîl to swallow. The size of increase leads one to wonder about their fiscal responsibility. The board has already hiked taxes up by an alarming rate for 1982 with even more horror storles to follow in 1983. This year, the board of education will spend in the neighbourhood of $120 million - almost 9ô per cent of which is allotted for wages, salaries and benefits for teachers, administrative and support staff. Their budget has been growing in leaps and bounds over the past few years and instead of ad- dressing their fiscal problems, trustees are bent on debating such items as whether or not Novem- ber 11 should be a holiday; French immersion and other non-essential issues. Another point that should be considered, if trustees want to give themselves a 39 per cent salary increase, what are they going to sayto the teachers' unions and the other labor groups they have to deal with? Trustees cannot preach res- traint on the part of the teachers if they do not practise it themselves. Other levels of local government are embracing- some form of restraint program, if not the federal government's famed "six and five" then some other version. But from the look of things, the Durham Board of Education is not particularly in- terested in practising restraint. The provincial government has already said its grants to municipalities and school boards will be the same or smaller next year, so the board had better get its act together in order to prevent un- due hardship on the taxpayer. One of the primary purposes of government is to show leadership, to show initiative, and to be resourceful in managing public affairs. Consider- ing the hard economic times, the board should be shylng away from 39 per cent over three years and look to dealing with salary requirements yearly and in tune with such things as the cost of living and other political issues such as senior govern- ment restraint programs. Another thing to consider is how many Durham Board of Education taxpayers will receive a 39 per cent salary increase over the next three years? Not many. In fact, many will be fortunate still to be employed if current economic trends continue. We are not saying that Durham Board of Educa- tion trustees should receive no salary increase - that would be unrealistic and unfair. What wè are saying is that the board should exercise some judgment and consider what realities are being faced by its constituents and act accordingly. à ft 0 a