Deficits Mount
The recent headlines are not encouraging. The Waterloo school district faces a $6.8 million budget deficit…while the Cedar Rapids school district has a deficit of nearly double that amount…$11 million.
They and others similarly situated say it’s because of lower enrollment…and now that state law permits state dollars to in essence follow the student as opposed to staying with the public school…parents and children are voting with their feet, abandoning the public schools in record numbers.
As I recall, this is what the public schools warned would happen with the advent of state-approved education savings accounts—students would leave, the money would dry up, and they’d find themselves short of operating capital.
So since they were so smart about what would happen…why did they not prepare ahead of time? Why is it that it’s hard to name any governmental entity that budgets prudently? If you think your family income may drop, you adjust your budget accordingly to avoid a deficit. Why not them?
Oh, that’s right…because taxpayers are a never-ending source of funds.
It does strike me that school districts that desire zillion dollar bond issues to build new buildings can’t manage the money they have. And if there is that significant an enrollment drop, to where folks have to be laid off…why are new buildings being built? Where are the cost-saving measures, other than perhaps to punish voters who denied them more money by cutting popular programs?
I don’t begrudge anyone a nice salary. I will note that you never see a reduction of pricey administrators when budgets are tight.
Proper education for our children, the future, is of paramount importance. Students fleeing public schools so they can get a proper education tells us why the public schools have a budget deficit…and why that won’t change until a proper education, free from indoctrination, returns to the K-12 classrooms.
