Not that any school district in North Carolina would be as
spendthrift as the Dallas Independent School District (DISD), but Texas
House Bill 2 may offer a model for increasing scrutiny of public school budgets. The Texas Public Policy Foundation looked at the DISD budget and found some surprises:
What enterprise do you suppose wrote checks amounting to $1.6 million
for lawyers, $375,000 for various chambers of commerce, $311,000 for
professional association fees, $90,000 for Franklin Covey (personal
effectiveness and productivity training), $14,500 for Billie Arbuckle
Adventures, and $2.7 million for Young Audiences of North Texas (arts
and cultural programs)?
As Chris Patterson notes in her column, these expenditures
accompanied the dismissal of “several hundred high school teachers
because of ‘inadequate’ funding.” Something to keep in mind as towns,
counties, and the states prepare their budgets.
