Who are you?
If you please, I -- I am Dorothy...the small and meek. We've come to ask you...
Silence!
Ohhhh-Jiminy Crickets!
The Great and Powerful Oz knows why you've come. Step forward.
Superintendents, principals, business managers. Asking them questions at public budget meetings can be a little intimidating. They have a little more information than you. But it's really only a little bit more. A tiny bit of research can counter it. And their powers of logic really aren't better than yours. Arm yourself with a little bit of information, and it turns out that they are really little men (and women) behind curtains. They use smoke, mirrors, and a booming voice. But that's all it is.
Ludicrous claims by school officials should not go unchallenged. In a year-in-review column in the Burlington Free Press recently the Milton budget vote was remembered. It took three tries, but the budget finally passed in August. School officials bulled through a 7.5 percent increase. The business manager is quoted as saying the two failed budget votes cost "at least $10,000 in postage, printing of new ballots and other expenses that come with holding an election." You don't say. $10,000, eh? What's that in a $21 million budget? Then the business manager figures in overtime expenses he and other administrators logged to make it "an expensive endeavor." Say what? Overtime?! These are salaried officials. Officials that are failing in their fiduciary duties, I might add.
I urge voters to peak around the curtain. Ask the questions -- and the follow-ups -- that need to be asked.
Comments