Archive: Opinions

EditorialIn trying times everybody likes to play the blame game.  And times couldn't get much more trying for Lansing's Board Of Education.  The buildings are crumbling, taxes are high and getting higher, reserve funds are depleted, and the district hasn't been able to keep top administrators for any significant length of time since Andrea price left in 2001.  Since then the district has had Interim Superintendents four times (Tiffany Phillips three times, and Tom Helmer last year) and four Superintendents (Robert J. Service, Corliss Kaiser, Mark Lewis, and now Steve Grimm).

In the past two and a half years alone the district has had one so-called permanent business administrator and four interims, including Gary Alger, Larry Driscoll, Larry Lawrence, and Klemm.  That chaos at the top along with a philosophically divided school board during much of that time has had disastrous results for the district and its taxpayers.  And after much time spent defining a job description and hiring a Director of Curriculum, Deb Pichette left that post after one year.  Even though it has been redefined yet again, the post will not be filled, at least this year.

Now we're at a point where a lot of mistakes seem to have been made that cost the taxpayers dear, and that will continue to demand expenditures and a lot of creative thinking.  You would be hard pressed to find a Lansing taxpayer who thinks school taxes are low, or who thinks the district spends our tax money responsibly.  It seems that every school board meeting brings more bad news.

Some people are blaming the last administration for the current problems.  That is as short sighted looking back as simply rolling over the school budget would be looking forward.  I watched the board charge that team with keeping the budget rise at 7% and each time they cut something the board sent them back to keep that thing and cut something else.  They managed to end up with a 3.84% rise.  But because of mistakes by past administrators taxes went up close to 10% anyway.  Was it that 3.84% wasn't enough?  Or is it that the budget as it was approved wasn't enforced?  That's part of the story, surely, but it is not the whole story.

It seems to me that the blame lies with seven years of no consistent administrative leadership coupled with school boards that were unwilling or unable to make the hard decisions needed to keep district  finances vital.  Seven superintendents in seven years -- what does that do to long term planning?

It decimates it.  This district hasn't had an effective long term plan in nearly a decade.  It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that the district is faced with the spectre of $262,000 in overspending this year alone, depleted reserves, and crumbling buildings.

It is not politically correct in this town to suggest reducing teacher positions, even though personnel costs more than anything else in a school district.  School board member David Dittman has suggested looking at everything -- including personnel levels to match school populations -- and constructing a budget from the ground up.  It has come to the point where, politically correct or not, it is time to do that.

But if it is not done in the context of a long term plan it will have no meaning and no effect.  Grimm and Business Administrator Dave Klemm have both called for a long term approach to pull the district out of its current straights and build a fiscally healthy school system for the future.  It will be a struggle in the current climate to put that together.  But it needs to be done.

That is going to be painful.  It's already painful!  But if it doesn't start now, things will get worse, not better.  Everyone including administrators, employees, taxpayers, and parents have a stake in the district fixing itself.  A healthy financial profile is good for all those stakeholders, and we all should be willing to do what it takes to get to that point.  That is going to mean working together under strong and understanding leadership, something the district hasn't been able to accomplish in a long time.

But if we as a community continue to drop the ball on this, the greatest impact will be on the most important stakeholders -- our kids.

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