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I have to admit, the 05-08-08 meeting wasn’t quite as bad as my expectations. At best I expected long winded pseudo-political tripe being served up with a healthy helping of “but it’s for the kids” pressure guilt. I was happily surprised. The board communicated their thoughts well and the predictable straight-man type setups by posing questions to already known responses were kept to a tolerable minimum. Over all, I thank the board for its candor.
In most cases.
As to my title, to those of you not familiar with the term “Hey, Rube!” I offer in explanation: 1) “Hey, Rube” is circus slang, a rallying cry for help when a circus person got into some sort of altercation with one of the “rubes”. Rubes are farmers, yokels, customers or, to contextualize, one of those unfortunates setup to be fleeced by said circus persons. 2) The late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson wrote a weekly column for ESPN, bearing this as its title. In the spirit of the former, I offer you:
Hey Rube!
I’m not saying I feel the Oxford taxpaying public is setup to be fleeced, in the classic sense of the word, but I will say I’m as uncomfortable with the budget issues now as I was when I went into the meeting. (For reference, you can find the budget and other info at: http://www.oxac.org/). I will say this; based on Thursday night’s sad lack of public participation I fear my cry for help will go unaided and unheeded. I know there is a lot of this voting stuff going on right now, but this one is worth your time folks. First off, do familiarize yourself with the budget data. I’ll not go into gory detail on that but instead allow you to draw your own conclusions.
My major exceptions were, and still are, that the budget seems unnecessarily top-heavy. The Administration component is receiving the lion’s share (6.95%) of the total increase while Program (students/teachers) and Capital (read "facilities”) both get a more modest 3.9 and 4.1%, respectively. Questions of “ok, there must be some fat to cut here” were met with the Boards solid assertion that they were at bare bones. I’m sure they feel that they are. Not to make this a hug fest, but I can see by my conversations with the board that they indeed have been trying. Well, in the spirit of academia, let me take my handy little red pen and scrawl across the page…”Needs improvement. Tighten. Re-State. Not working to full potential!”
But How? And Where? Glad you asked!
One of the other voices of the public (I thankfully wasn’t the only dissenter) brought up some excellent points. One of which was in the area of teachers aids. State mandate says we must have 11 minimum to properly service our student body. There are currently 19. Yes, the point was made that some are part-time and four part-timers equal one full timer. Still, and I’m not advocating the loss of employment for anyone here, it seems to be disproportionate. Real numbers on student per teacher per aide would, I think, bear reaching the same conclusions. As an enriching alternative, perhaps a consideration of partnering with the several area Universities in a work study or field placement partnership could be a solution? This would do a real service to Chenango and surrounding counties while still meeting the needs of our students. I cringe at that part-time/full-time equation, almost Wal-Martian in nature and which is used to avoid the costs associated with full time employee benefits. It is one of those things that help to keep communities at or near poverty levels.
Another short-list budget reduction item might be to consider this proposed bus purchase and, while were at it, the bus routing in general. This was asked about in meeting, and again was met with the assertion of it being necessary. The need to have enough bus seats for each and every student on the rolls cited as the reasoning for this one. Not to put to fine a point on it but that’s just not a can-do attitude. I see a lot of busses going to and from the schools not anywhere near full capacity. It seems that many parents take their children to school. Thought needs to be given to the idea that this is a situation to be leveraged. Having half empty busses pulling into school parking lots interspersed with car loads of kids being shuttled to school just seems…well…wrong.
I’d also take a look, friends, at that fuel cost equation. 63% just sounds too high. It would mean we are paying more than half again for diesel than we were last year. When I pencil whip the numbers, I come to a more in-line with real world conditions of 48.6%. For my source on this (or maybe just for giggles) see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/gdu/gasdiesel.asp (I used U.S. average for my calculations). By the way, keep in mind that the school system gets some tax breaks on their fuel costs, so one would think that the percentage would be lower than the going rate. It was hard, but I did pay attention in Economics.
Now, into my field of expertise! Oh yes, the great wild and wooly rocket ride that is I.T. I was starting to elucidate freely on this subject last night, but we all managed to side track and the point was left unresolved. I’ve got more years than I really care to think about logged on this subject, with a large portion of them spent in the upper I.T. levels of a fortune 100 corporation. A policy of yearly replacement of equipment is a poor answer to the support/repair/replace conundrum. In my experience anything under a 3 to 5 year replacement scheme is foolish, at best. If systems are stable and functioning, there is a good and real expectation of attaining a high level of performance and service. Most major universities share this philosophy. For instance, Ithaca College and Cornell both subscribe to the 3 year plan. M.I.T. also feels this sufficient to still keep a high level of systems functionality. A “computer” can some times take a little breaking-in time. Out of the box, a system can be prone to issues that once rectified cease to be problematic. Continuous hardware replacement actually causes a productive downward trend. One of my peers summed it up nicely, and I paraphrase here. “I bought one of your used Dells, its still working fine for me!” A good hard re-think on computer policy I think is warranted. There’s got to be a few bucks that can be squeezed out of this one.
There you have it. No, there are no magic bullets or power hitters here, just a little squeezed out here or there is all we need. And yes, I still feel the budget to be Admistrativly top-heavy. Glance at the numbers. I’ll not single out any one item; just say simply that it’s heavy. We’re being charged a good solid buck for those services and I hope we are getting our moneys worth. Also, again as a vote of comprehension with the board’s difficulties in the budget process, the effect of Albany politics and good ole New York City are far reaching in a very distasteful trickle down manner. That said, there needs to be a clear understanding that the patience of the tax payers is not limitless. If you read the budget data carefully, you’ll notice a reference to a “contingency” budget. In these times of, and I use the boards references and quote directly, “As a result of earnings declining on Wall Street and the continued fall out from the housing market contributing to the tightening of credit, the District is planning on a much leaner State budget next year”, I think a lean consideration for this school district would be, to say the least, prudent.
Folks, I’m done. Thanks for listening. I could go on and on but ultimately I’m just one of, so far, a few people willing to spend a little public spirited time on this.
Join us. Please.
The vote happens on Tuesday, May 20th, 1 to 9PM at the Oxford Academy High School Media Center.
Be heard. Get involved. Vote your conscience. And remember, start saving for that escrow shortfall!
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6 comments on this topic:
if you dig down into the details, you get the component break outs I mention, thus my feeling that Admin is getting an overall too high of an increase. Drop them down to the level of the other two and we can it the contigency budget number of 3.03%
I hate typing without a net!
my point on that contigency budget number being a little eaiser to choke down is that its a wee bit more aligned with the real world level of "cost of living" or "merit" raises.
I don't know if you checked your mail today (USPS mail), but they sent out a budget notice. Its a quickie notice, but the "contingency" budget is listed in brief detail. Read the text associated. The vote on this could really matter.
And as an aside, do know that they get two chances to put this before the voters. If this budget is voted a "nay" then they can put another one to the ballot. Its only upon failure of that one, if we force a "do-over", that the contingency budget kicks in.
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