HOW TO PISS YOUR "BUSINESS" DOWN THE CRAPPER

by Bob Walsh

OK, I grant you, the Sacramento Unified School District is not, strictly speaking, a business. They do, however, have many business-like attributes. They hire people, they buy goods and services, and they turn out a product, at least after a fashion. And they have a budget.

This year when they submitted their budget to the County Board of Education it was rejected. It was rejected because they were $48 MILLION in the red over a projected two years. It seems that for YEARS they have been kicking the can down the road, using one-time funds to bolster on-going projects and doing other similar stupid shit.

School funding is challenging. Something like 75% of their cost is personnel. Virtually all of their money is earmarked, their discretionary spending is actually pretty minimal. They are strongly unionized. The board is squawking like mashed cats for "more time" to solve the problem. The county has been pointing out to them that there is in fact no more time. They have thus far managed to hack $10 million. That is barely 20% of what they need. They are making pointed suggestions that the unions will have to give something back. That certainly is not going to happen unless the suits give at least as much back, and preferably more. The suits are not lining up to take a pay cut so the unions damn sure aren't going to. And of course no one wants their pet "student enrichment" project shelved.

I would not care to bet that the district will not go toes up and be taken over. That is what happens when you have a board that takes a WHAT, ME WORRY? attitude about stuff. At some point you have to pay the band or they stop playing. That is the point they are at now. It will be REAL INTERESTING to see what happens. The drop-dead point is in about 20 days or so.

EDITOR'S NOTE: "Student enrichment" project. Does that mean teaching students to read, write and do simple math, or does that mean teaching multiculturalism and diversity?