Mrs. Ware Announces Action Permits Immediate Saving to Town
SHELBURNE FALLS- A 10 per cent reduction in the salaries of teachers at Arms
academy was reported Monday afternoon by Mrs. Herbert P. Ware, chairman of the
Shelburne school committee, effective March 1. The reduction does not affect
three teachers however whose salaries have not been major. The teachers voluntarily
submitted their contract privileges to the school committee. The reduction would
not have otherwise become effective until the close of the year.
Teachers in other schools of the town of Shelburne have not been effected by
the recent reduction. The cut coincides with similar action taken by teachers,
and town officials in numerous other cities and towns.
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Cities and towns suffered from the economic collapse of the Great Depression just as businesses and consumers. The massive decline in economic activity radically reduced the taxes on which municipalities depended. Unemployed citizens often could not afford to pay their property taxes. With the decline in business activities and retail sales, local governments received reduced income from these tax sources. Some municipalities actually went bankrupt during the Depression. Others followed the strategy of Shelburne Falls, a small industrial town in Western Massachusetts. This article relates that teachers at Shelburne Falls' Arms academy took a voluntary reduction in salary. Employment at reduced wages was preferable to the unemployment these teachers would have faced had the town declared bankruptcy.