Archive: Opinions

EditorialThe news that the Lansing Schools overspent last year's budget and has sloppy accountability for expenditures as reported in the most recent district audit should not come as a surprise.  The School District's business administrator's seat has been victim of the same game of musical chairs that the superintendent's seat has been.  Lansing has had three Interim Business Administrators and one so-called permanent one in the past three years.  Each has had to jump in to the school's finances, get up to speed, deal with complicated regulations, learn the school culture, and wrestle with increasing financial problems in the district.  And in what is becoming an alarming pattern, the 'permanent' Business Administrator was driven out by second guessing by an unwelcoming community.

The result is a series of mistakes by the district that adds up to depleted reserves, sloppy monitoring of expenditures, not to mention poor or no long-term decisions, and spotty guidance for the Board of Education.  When the new guy discovers inherited problems, he becomes the messenger that is a prime target for shooting.  Then the cycle repeats, with a snowballing list of problems for the next administrator to deal with. There are two pieces of this.  One is that a new administrator wants to feel welcome in his or her new job.  And the other is having someone in place long enough to solve current problems as well as plan ahead to avoid future pitfalls.  The School District could take a page from the Lansing Fire District's playbook, which uses a 20 year financial plan to control expenditures, plan capital projects that will be acceptable and affordable, and prevent tax rises for many years, and keep them small when they do go up.

Making a new administrator feel welcome shouldn't be that hard.  Part of it is being supportive.  Part of that is giving them time to ease into their job.  Part of it is simple good manners and hospitality.  A new person in high office is stressful for everybody, because it is a person who can change comfortable patterns for employees and community members alike.  He or she represents the unknown.  At the same time, that person is entering an unknown, which is equally unsettling. 

It's probably a good idea not to try to start a capital project on his or her first day, or to hire someone in the middle of the budget cycle.  And it might be nice to listen to this person's ideas -- after all, we presumably hired him because he knows something about business administration.  If we're willing to pay the salary why, as a community, do we seem to be so unwilling to listen to what he has to say?

I moved cold-turkey into new communities twice.  Each time my new department heads invited me into their homes, or to events around town until I had a chance to get established in the community.  I didn't necessarily end up being best pals with them, but it made my transition into the community quite pleasant.  It was a way of meeting people in a low-key atmosphere, connected yet separate from my job.  This wasn't hard for them to do and it made a world of difference to me.  I always  just assumed that this is normal, but evidently it isn't the norm here.

That's too bad, because I have a feeling we could have kept our last 'permanent' business administrator with very little effort that might eventually have brought the community great returns.  The poor guy seemed to have new bad financial news to relay every couple of weeks. 

The school board can't take all the blame for making short term financial decisions that turned out to be harmful in the long run -- they haven't had steady guidance in years.  The more fires to put out, the less time for thoughtful planning.  The less time for planning, the more problems that emerge unexpectedly.  If spending procedures have gotten out of hand in the district, when does a business administrator have time for long term planning and setting procedures as he rushes around trying to put out fires faster than a California National Guardsman?

The district's financial problems and rising taxes aren't going to go away until there is strong, stable leadership both in the Business Administrator's office and on the School Board.  Each year that doesn't happen means more recovery time when it does eventually happen.  It will certainly be disheartening if we see the same-old same-old when we eventually get our next 'permanent' Business Administrator.

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