Sigh.

Where to begin? I guess with the full, ugly backstory:

Until budget conditions improve, he said, CMS could move forward with pilot programs to explore privatization of magnet school transportation and food service contracts at 10 to 20 schools.

He said recommendations for those projects could be ready for the 2012-13 budget year. An advisory board would be appointed to help oversee the effort.

But the idea brought strong protests from board members Tom Tate, Joe White, Richard McElrath and Joyce Waddell. They questioned whether the staff has the time to oversee another major program.

White said the magnet routes are the longest and most difficult, and added that he doesn’t believe private companies’ employees would be as professional or as dedicated as CMS employees.

“It appears to me we’re just trying to find a way for private companies to make money off of our kids,” he said.

Yes. Precisely. As they deliver services at a lower total cost than CMS currently does. But is this really surprising? The city of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, and CMS are all actively hostile to any kind of performance contracting — deals which could save them tens of millions of dollars a year. In fact the city and county managers are so against any loss of headcount or line items that they impugn the motives of anyone or anything that suggests that performance contracting is the way to go — even as hundreds of other jurisdictions across the country embrace that approach.

You can see just how backward and retrograde Charlotte remains by the fact that CMS actually looked at the way the city claims it does “privatization” — which is with additional staff. What a neat little trick that is — gee, the only way we can privatize any government service or activity is by hiring more people.

The people in charge of our local institutions are well and truly delusional.