work sucks

Since many of you have asked, here is the outcome of my meeting yesterday with the Jeffco's executive director of finances.
1) I was one of ~12 people in the second largest CO school district to which this salary mistake happened. Whatever that means. The irony of how the mistake was found should also not go unmentioned.
2) Usually, once the mistake is uncovered, the deduction (they call it "correction") begins that next month. In my case, the mistake was found sometime in September and it was rolling around in negotiations and legal red tape, largely because of my principal and Amy Weber's advocacy (thanks, Rod!) since then. My case was even taken so far as Jeffco's superintendent.
3) I will be losing between $250.00-$300.00 per month after taxes, beginning in my January pay period. That's bad.
4) salaries in the District are frozen until...sometime around the next ice age. So that's bad, too. However...
4) I will not be required to pay back the salary discrepency from 2007 to now, so that's good.
5) Legal action on my part would not yield positive results on any level, so that nuclear option is off the table, which my principal will be pleased to find out :)
6) Though my salary has been drastically reduced, at least I still have two secure jobs in a world where millions of highly qualified people find themselves unemployed, so that's good. (It's clear that I'm trying to find that elusive "silver lining" people talk so much of these days, and that's good).

Thanks for all your support through this. I'm looking for more holiday hours at my second job, Alisa is making some "creative" budget decisions, and most of our Christmas presents will be organically-produced this year. (Read: hand-made). No way around this being a real kick in the head, but it's forcing my family to think about what really matters and what is only superfluous...so that's good, too.