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Speaker 1: We know that this new offer has indeed been put

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Speaker 1: on the table for teachers, so teachers have been offered

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Speaker 1: a nine percent pay rise by October twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 1: The latest enterprise bargaining agreement in Northern Territory government put

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Speaker 1: on the table it is going to backpay a three

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Speaker 1: percent pay rise from October eleven last year and this year,

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Speaker 1: and then promises a further three percent to be delivered

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Speaker 1: on October eleven, twenty twenty three. Now joining me on

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Speaker 1: the line is Tabby Fudge, the president of nt COGZO.

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Speaker 1: Good morning to you, Tabby, Good.

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Speaker 2: Morning Katie, and good morning to your listen.

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Speaker 1: Name now, Tabby. I'm not sure if you heard the

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Speaker 1: Chief Minister on the show earlier this morning, but did

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Speaker 1: that provide our schools any further clarity? Do you think

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Speaker 1: around how exactly this pay increase is going to be funded?

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Speaker 2: I did hear Chief Minister Files this morning on the radio,

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Speaker 2: and there seem to be some assurances that it wouldn't

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Speaker 2: be coming out of school budgets. But information that we

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Speaker 2: heard from Chancey Paike on Friday was that it would

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Speaker 2: be a mixture of school budgets and Department of Education

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Speaker 2: funding so I think until we get some certainty in writing,

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Speaker 2: I think we need to sort of tread cautiously. And

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Speaker 2: what we must also remember is if there's money coming

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Speaker 2: to pay for these EBA negotiations out of the Department

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Speaker 2: of Education, bugget, that is still education money. That is

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Speaker 2: still money that we're going to be worse off for.

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Speaker 2: This is still you know, it is going to trickle

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Speaker 2: down into less for schools. And when we have less

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Speaker 2: funding for schools, we know that means less teachers, less resources,

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Speaker 2: less programs. That's less for our children. And our children

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Speaker 2: don't deserve less, they deserve more.

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Speaker 1: Tabby. You know, obviously the payoffer is quite is fair,

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Speaker 1: and it does seem to be fair. A lot of

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Speaker 1: people have sort of gone, alright, this seems as so

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Speaker 1: it's finally an offer which our teachers will hopefully accept.

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Speaker 1: But then it seems odd to me if we're robbing

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Speaker 1: Peter to Paul exactly.

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Speaker 2: And this is a conversation that the COGSO executive had

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Speaker 2: on Saturday at our quarterly meeting. You know, it's all

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Speaker 2: very well and good to say that you're giving with

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Speaker 2: one hand, but then you're taking with another. So you know,

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Speaker 2: we're still going to end up worse off. You know,

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Speaker 2: the Northern Territory public education systems has a system of

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Speaker 2: funding called effective enrollment, which is the biggest boxymoron to

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Speaker 2: ever have hit education. It's neither based on enrollment nor

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Speaker 2: is it effective. We are the only region in Australia

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Speaker 2: where we have this. Every other region is funded on enrollment,

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Speaker 2: so that straightway means that our children are getting less

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Speaker 2: straight up.

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Speaker 1: So Tabby, just talk us through. I mean, when you

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Speaker 1: talk about this payoffer that's been struck, it has the

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Speaker 1: government spoken to schools from your understanding, from the understanding

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Speaker 1: of cogso in terms of you know how it's going

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Speaker 1: to be funded or what the percentage split's going to be.

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Speaker 2: What we've seen so far is with the EBA negotiations

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Speaker 2: for admin staff, there are schools that have had to

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Speaker 2: fund that out of their budget. As Beverly said last

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Speaker 2: week to mid min alone has had to cop ninety

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Speaker 2: eight thousand dollars for their admin staff. So that's money

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Speaker 2: coming out of an existing budget already. So I think,

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Speaker 2: you know, if we look at what's been happening, I mean,

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Speaker 2: we can you know imagine what's going to happen into

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Speaker 2: the future, but until we had something firm in writing,

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Speaker 2: we're sort of guessing. But you know, I think you know,

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Speaker 2: past actions can sometimes be an indicator of future action.

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Speaker 2: And if we've already seen that the admin staff EBA

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Speaker 2: has come out of existing budgets, you know, this is

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Speaker 2: I think why everyone is so very concerned, because it

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Speaker 2: does feel very much like the previous EBA negotiations under

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Speaker 2: the gile tone of government, which was unfunded until school

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Speaker 2: rap bodies, parents and families realized that this was going

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Speaker 2: to be money directly coming out of their children's education.

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Speaker 2: And on the other side of that, I can imagine

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Speaker 2: I can almost guarantee you that there is not a

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Speaker 2: single teacher who wants to see their EBA negotiation funding

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Speaker 2: coming out of existing school budgets. Teachers more than anyone,

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Speaker 2: I'm so aware of the lack of funding for our

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Speaker 2: staff and put students in our school.

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Speaker 1: Tabby, does it feel as though the government's trying to

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Speaker 1: pull the wool over our eyes here?

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Speaker 2: These kinds of things always seem to happen at the

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Speaker 2: end of term four, when everyone's tired and cranky and

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Speaker 2: just I don't know if everyone's leaving it to the

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Speaker 2: last minute and trying to slip it through it. I

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Speaker 2: would hope not, because you know, we're sort of we

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Speaker 2: wait for it at the end of every term four.

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Speaker 2: There's always something that goes on. But I mean, you'd

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Speaker 2: hope not. You know, you would really, really genuinely hope

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Speaker 2: that these negotiations are in good faith and at the

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Speaker 2: end of the day, there is no greater investment that

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Speaker 2: a government can make than into children's education. You know,

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Speaker 2: we're constantly talking about disengaged youth on our streets and

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Speaker 2: the anti social behavior that's happening. We know that it

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Speaker 2: investment in education curves that kind of behavior, because that

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Speaker 2: kind of behavior starts when children disengage from their education,

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Speaker 2: and that's that pipeline into the juvenile justice system and

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Speaker 2: that downwards viral from their education. Is the greatest singular

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Speaker 2: investment that any government can make.

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Speaker 1: So Tabby, can I just make this really clear in

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Speaker 1: my mind and for our listeners this morning as well. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: this payoffer has been put on the table for our teachers.

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Speaker 1: From the outset, it looks like it's a good offer.

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Speaker 1: The teachers will go to vote. They've gotten till I

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Speaker 1: think Monday or Tuesday next week to decide whether they

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Speaker 1: accept that offer. But at this point in time, there's

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Speaker 1: no clarification as to exactly how that's being funded. And

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Speaker 1: the Chief Minister confirmed this morning that it's going to

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Speaker 1: be between five to seven million dollars additional, she didn't

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Speaker 1: confirm whether that's per year or over that three year period.

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Speaker 1: But right now we don't know exactly how that's going

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Speaker 1: to be funded.

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Speaker 2: That's the way I understand it, Katie. Until we have

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Speaker 2: something in writing, we are not exactly assured of where

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Speaker 2: that funding is coming from. And we've got to remember,

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Speaker 2: you know, we've seen the greatest increases in CPI that

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Speaker 2: we've seen in years and years and years, and I

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Speaker 2: don't know that the Department of Education has increased school budgets,

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Speaker 2: the global school budgets accordingly. You know, we're still struggling

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Speaker 2: to see a lot of these numbers. You know, they

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Speaker 2: introduced a new finance system this year. Some schools are

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Speaker 2: still not seeing their budgets at all. You know, it's

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Speaker 2: sort of a little bit confusing out there as well.

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Speaker 2: As you know, there's there's a direction from the Department

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Speaker 2: of It to put contingencies into school budgets. You know,

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Speaker 2: which can often be seen as a code for you know,

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Speaker 2: funding an ABA. You know, it's it's we need something

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Speaker 2: firm and in writing to know exactly where we're standing.

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Speaker 2: And you know, there's also the the you know, the

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Speaker 2: the fact that some schools have been asked to make

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Speaker 2: a contribution back to the department of their spent funds,

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Speaker 2: you know, contribution callback. What do you want to call that?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. You know, there has there has been

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Speaker 2: a really solid piece of work from the CEE there

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Speaker 2: about working with schools to allocate and spend their existing budgets.

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Speaker 2: But that was there was a commitment around that to

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Speaker 2: be doing that with school for twelve months, yeah, you know,

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Speaker 2: and that hasn't happened. So to be asking schools to

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Speaker 2: give back money that they've quite possibly allocated or that

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Speaker 2: they played quite possibly didn't even know that they had,

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Speaker 2: you know, there needs to be some really firm work

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Speaker 2: done around working with schools to allocate and spend those money.

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Speaker 1: Taby, you said that COGSO had that meeting on Saturday.

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Speaker 1: I mean, was this the biggest concern that was raised?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, this is a concern across the whole territory because

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Speaker 2: as our Chief Minister said earlier five to seven million dollars.

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Speaker 2: Is that you know, is that an annual figure? Is

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Speaker 2: that over the three years? What is that? What does

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Speaker 2: that mean for each every individual school budget? You know,

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of questions, a lot of questions, and

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Speaker 2: to rush anything through before Christmas would be very wrong.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it does seem as though there's lots of questions

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Speaker 1: that remain unanswered tabby and that must be tough before, like,

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Speaker 1: as we're leading into the end of the year, I

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Speaker 1: mean next week for most of our government schools, a

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Speaker 1: Thursday next week I think is the last day of school,

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Speaker 1: so it's really getting so close and i'd imagine a

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Speaker 1: lot of schools looking at you know, doing a lot

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Speaker 1: of work around their budgets for next year.

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Speaker 2: Well. Absolutely, and that's been really tricky because you know,

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Speaker 2: when budgets haven't been finalized yet, how do you factor

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Speaker 2: in an unknown quantity into a budget going forward when

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Speaker 2: you don't know what that figure is? You don't know,

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Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's sort of

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Speaker 2: a bit all over the place. But you know, our

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Speaker 2: main points coming out of Saturday's executive meeting was that

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Speaker 2: everybody was adamant that government needs to fund all negotiated

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Speaker 2: wage increases for our staff with new money and not

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Speaker 2: from current school budgets. And we need the agreement honored

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Speaker 2: to provide all schools with accurate monthly financial reports with

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Speaker 2: the expert advice from the Department of Education on their

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Speaker 2: financial position, and that they must cease and return all

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Speaker 2: contributions forced to be made by school. And the biggest

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Speaker 2: thing for us too is also to fund our schools

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Speaker 2: on enrollment and not attendance, you know, to be to

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Speaker 2: be further penalizing. The most disadvantage cohort in the country

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Speaker 2: is just it's unconscionable.

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Speaker 1: Well, Tabby Fudge, the president of nt cogso I always

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Speaker 1: appreciate your time, Thank you so much for having a

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Speaker 1: chat with us this morning and just sort of clearing

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Speaker 1: it up a bit more, I think in everybody's minds,

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Speaker 1: because I know for a lot of us parents we

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Speaker 1: want to see our teachers you know, renumerated fairly, but

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Speaker 1: we want to kind of have a good understanding of

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Speaker 1: where that money is coming from and if it's going

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Speaker 1: to have an impact on the school or not.

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Speaker 2: Well, absolutely it is, as you know, as we already

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Speaker 2: know from that one example that the chair of Timin

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Speaker 2: in Beverly, Ritard, he gave us. You know, the Adamin

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Speaker 2: staff alone was ninety eight thousand dollars. It had to

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Speaker 2: come out of an existing budget, so you know it

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Speaker 2: is affecting schools already.

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Speaker 1: Well, Tabby, thank you so much for having a chat

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Speaker 1: with me this morning. No doubt we'll probably speak before

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Speaker 1: the year's end with all of this going on.

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Speaker 2: Thanks very much. I have a great day everyone.

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Speaker 1: You two