To the editor:

While I know we just passed the season of Easter eggs and springtime, I would like to look forward to the season of pumpkins and Thanksgiving.

I would like to halt the avalanche of negative letters directed toward the $44,000 pay increase given Superintendent Terry Noble and give a big “thank you” to the Board of Education for granting this increase.

Thanks for showing the public what the term pension spiking means. Before his stint at Mehlville, Mr. Noble’s largest yearly salary was $120,000 a year at De Soto. However, if he retires in three years he will receive roughly $202,000 per year for the rest of his life. In simpler terms, he will become a million-dollar man every five years. It’s clear that his contributions over his career will be nowhere near what he gets in retirement. Who will pay the difference you ask? You, the taxpayer — of course.

Is it any wonder that over the last eight years the pension contribution rates from taxpayers have increased a whopping 33 percent? And what are elected officials doing to stop this?

Absolutely nothing — look no further than Board of Education President Tom Diehl defending the pension rip-off by saying “due to the arcane peculiarities of the retirement system.”

The only thing that is arcane and peculiar is having to listen to Mr. Diehl pontificating to us while his actions have made it clear that neither he nor the members of the Board of Education have a clue on how to fix a broken bureaucracy except to throw more of your tax dollars at it.

Don’t believe me? Look no further than COMPASS II and the wish list they are putting together that would need to ask residents for a $1.23 tax-rate increase. This would increase the taxes paid by the owner of a $250,000 house roughly $585 per year.

You haven’t heard that real cost anywhere yet, have you? Of course you haven’t. You won’t hear that until October when we see kids without textbooks and hear catch phrases like: “Your property values will go down if you don’t approve this,” and of course: “It’s for the kids.”

I’m sorry, but any school board that aids and abets a single employee who will walk out with $2 million every decade and has the audacity to even consider a 34-percent tax-rate increase in November certainly has no business taking more of our dollars.

I would urge voters to reject it and show that this Board of Education wins the Turkey of the Year Award.

Aaron Hilmer

Oakville

Editor’s note: Mr. Hilmer serves as chairman of the Mehlville Fire Protection District Board of Directors.