I keep hearing the same refrain: "Why should we keep funding schools? My tax money would be better spent elsewhere. Why should the schools keep getting 3% - 6% increases when I didn't get that this year?" and so on.
Money isn't everything, but not much gets done in this country without it.
If you've been funding your school properly for the last ten years, then you can easily keep the increases to the rate of inflation. Massive increases are unnecessary. Spending cuts will be possible but only for the "spend to the limits of your budget" kinds of purchases. Overall, the budget won't decrease unless you cut Art or do something equally foolish.
If you've been scrimping and underpaying for years, then more money will become necessary. Sooner or later, you'll have to repair, hire, replace, install or upgrade from the twenty-year-old books to something with covers and mentions of post-cold war America. Spending cuts will only make problems worse.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
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My school board has been deferring maintenance for twenty years now, which means that we are about half a billion dollars in the hole on work that should have been done just to keep the buildings up to speed.
ReplyDeleteExample: one school was roofed with improper materials (intended for interior use and not to be exposed to water so what was it doing as roofing?) and was leaking water. It took six months for the one inspector in the system to come around and decide it was a hazard to students. The school was closed for the remainder of the year and three months into the next one and the kids were bused into portables at other schools. Cost to the system? Probably a lot more than ensuring the roof was fixed properly the first time.
That's how we do things in Calgary, Alberta: Retard Capital of Canada.