Several news outlets, though politically-neutral, have the appearance of complaining about Beverly Perdue cutting the budgets of school systems by a few million dollars. The timing, they say, is bad because it is nearly the end of the school year. It is difficult to believe department heads truly pulled the wool over administrators’ eyes in their annual, EOY justify-the-budget spending sprees.
But the state is earning a reputation for jerking the schools around. Back in February, the schools were denied proceeds from the Education Lottery, but the state might allow schools receiving NPM* to send those funds to the state instead of using them for the purpose stated on the application. The state’s treatment of people trying to make school budgets reminds me of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn playing with Aunt Sally’s silverware.
It is no secret that school systems and the state can cut fluff from their budgets. PTA’s could probably make decent recommendations if they had available data. The problem is, published budgets lump expenditures in huge categories rounded to the nearest thousand or million dollars. It is difficult to believe in this age of transparency technology that government can’t post online a ledger tracking the purpose and amount of each check spent. When civilians commit crimes, law enforcement officers often refer to those acts as liberty-depriving. It is not invasive for those who shell out the money to demand a full accounting; especially since key spenders have been sent up the river.
*I have resolved not to use government euphemisms for destructive practices. This is an acronym for Newly Printed Money available through the ARRA.
