Archive: Opinions

EditorialAt the end Monday's school board meeting board members were polled to see what sized budget they were willing to put to a public vote this May.  They considered three choices.  Two said $24.6 million at at tax rate change of 8.5%.  Two said $24.3 million at a tax rate rise of 6.64%.  One said less.

One board member said he was leaning toward the higher number because almost all the people who spoke out wanted to preserve teachers and programs as they are now, or very close to it.  Only two had spoken in favor of keeping taxes down.  Actually, I don't think anyone in the room wanted to cut programs.  But those two talked about strapped taxpayers struggling to keep their homes in a miserable economy.  After the meeting I got into a somewhat heated discussion in which I told this board member that I don't think you can rely on speakers at public meetings to get a true sense of what taxpayers want -- that it is only a piece of the puzzle, not the whole picture.

I argued that it takes courage to speak up in a public meeting, and when it is politically incorrect to say what you want to say most people can't bring themselves to do it.  As speaker after speaker advocating higher taxes to keep things as they are now was loudly applauded I thought that those who are desperately trying to make their mortgage and tax payments must be more and more intimidated about speaking out. 

So he asked me how I think the board should collect this information.  I said I thought they should be going out to the community in diverse smaller groups where people feel comfortable with each other and are more willing to speak up as Superintendent Stephen Grimm has done.

For the past two weeks the school board has floated the idea of an online poll, but that is problematic because it is unscientific and because there isn't enough time to do that in any meaningful way.  Grimm said last week that the exit poll at the May vote will serve that purpose for a second vote if the first one fails. 

We've run some polls in the Star over the past five years, and they were seriously un-scientific.  A Californian friend told me she would fill out the 'How long have you lived in Lansing' poll once a week, giving different answers just for fun.  Even serious polling sites can't get you a statistically viable sample of district residents, and it takes a long time to construct a scientific poll because the way you phrase a question often influences the answer.  We've had 1246 replies to that 'How long...' poll so far.  I have no idea how many actual people that represents.  It's just for fun.

In my off-the-record life recently a lot of people have told me they think the school district has taxed too much for a long time, that it has indulged its wants with little thought about distinguishing those wants from actual needs, and that it is unfair to ask people who are barely scraping along to increase great salaries and benefits for school employees.  And that they fear that their ability to keep their houses has been eroded to the breaking point.  They weren't afraid to tell me this because we were just people, shooting the breeze.  None of these folks spoke at last Monday's meeting and I don't think they would ever feel comfortable enough to express those thoughts in a public forum like that.

I don't agree with all of that.  Lansing teachers have an important job -- arguably the most important job -- and are, for the most part, excellent.  In order to attract and keep them we have to pay them, just as in business and industry.  Anything less wouldn't seem fair to me.  But sometimes layoffs are necessary because of economics.  Unfortunate, but part of reality.  What is different from business is that when a school district is faced with budget problems the loudest people are heard and everyone who isn't afraid to stand up gets to have a say and try to influence the final decision.  In business they just lay you off.

I was laid off once.  We all got notice in the morning to call into a group phone conference later that day.  A dour HR person told us we were being laid off, what our last day of work would be, and what severance package we would be getting.  There was no discussion.  No argument.  No choice.  I didn't like it.  The company didn't care whether I liked it or not.

So I understand the fear, the politicking, and the pressure that is being put on a school board that is made up, after all, of our neighbors who live in our community and want to do the right thing.  They know everyone is going to hate whatever they come up with.  They know that the loudest voices right now are people in favor of keeping the wonderful school system we currently have.  They know they have to live with people who are likely to be mad at whatever they come up with.  And in times like these with alternatives like these just about everyone is going to be mad.

The idea has been floated to let the community decide by putting higher taxes on the May ballot, knowing that a smaller budget could be put on the second ballot if the taxpayers do say no.  That is one way of doing it.  But taxpayers elect public officials to be leaders, and that seems like a cop-out to me.  As Grimm has repeatedly said to apparently deaf ears, the budget isn't about how much can we get out of taxpayers, but about what we really need to provide excellent education and being able to defend 'need' in a way the community understands and supports.

Taking that approach builds community trust and support.  Shouldn't board members put forth a budget that seems reasonable to them based on proactively gathering community response and making a balanced judgment that takes the district's healthy fiscal future, community fiscal pain, and quality education in equal measure?  If the community as a whole thinks that is what they are voting on, it seems more likely that they'll vote yes on a budget.

Dr. Grimm has gone out into the community and talked to a myriad of stakeholder groups, and he seems convinced that part of the balance in next year's budget is respecting the fact that taxpayers are at the breaking point.  Of all the people in Lansing the last person who wants to cut a school budget is a Superintendent of Schools.  He seems to be taking a transparent, reasonable, reasoned approach to balancing the budget, acknowledging that things will almost certainly get worse before they get better.  He has talked to people in the community that he didn't already know.  In making this decision board members should either try holding focus meetings or trust the input Grimm gathered.

The teacher's union president said Monday that there is no reason to change the way education is served to our kids because Lansing already provides a high quality education.  She said, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  What exactly is broken in the way we deliver academics in Lansing?"

If the only issue were teacher jobs and quality education I would agree with her.  But that's not the part that's broken.  The state is cutting aid.  The federal stimulus money is running out.  The town's largest taxpayer has just negotiated a contract that reduces their payment by half a million dollars not to mention the loss of the additional $300,000 plus they would have paid if the original agreement had stood.  School reserves are hemorrhaging to make up these losses and still there is more than $1 million budget gap.  Contractual obligations and health care expenses are spiraling upward.

That's what's broken.  Income doesn't cover what we would need to spend to keep education delivery exactly as it is now.

There are only two ways to fix this stupid economy:  More taxes or cuts.  Or a balance of the two.  If it's all taxes we don't face cuts until next year.  If it's all cuts or even a balance of the two, the choices are to be creative about delivering education effectively with less or deliver a lower quality education.  Another board member is advocating deeper cuts to put the district on a sound financial footing as it faces even more revenue loss over the coming years.

So where does that leave us?  I think it is clear that those who speak out the loudest are those that are heard.  I honestly don't blame the board member for thinking that.  But if that's the only message the board hears you can bet your bottom dollar that taxes will be going way up this summer.  Unfortunately that is going to mean taking some Lansing residents' bottom dollar, which will push more people out of a community that owes a large part of its unique character to the congenial mix of a lot of different kinds of people.

Even though elected officials are put into office to be proactive and lead the community, school board members are very busy people, taking on a second full time job in behalf of their community when they have to keep working at the day job that actually pays their bills.  They already take a ton of time away from their families to make life in our community better for all our families.  And a school board meeting is a public forum, a way people can come to them to tell them what they think.  It's not the only way, but it's a time-efficient way for board members. 

So if board members can't or won't come to you then you should go to them.  People who think that the proposed cuts are reasonable given the lousy economy should contact every single school board members in private if they can't bring themselves to do it in public.  If they are truly a minority, so be it, but everyone should be heard by our representatives before they make a decision that will not only impact the community this year, but for years to come. 

School board members clearly need all the input they can get.  They were virtually begging for more input at Monday's meeting.  Every taxpayer in the district has as much responsibility to give it to them as the board has to make the best representative decision possible.  They make it easy: their e-mail addresses are linked on the school Web site .

As former President Clinton famously put it, "It's the economy, stupid."  As Superintendent Grimm put it, the school distric has been acting responsibly to put district finances into good shape, but external forces have devastated that effort.  But the reality is that the district has to do something about it.  More taxes?  Cuts?  Thomas Jefferson said that 'people get the government they deserve.'  People who don't help the school board understand what Lansing taxpayers can endure are going to get the taxes they deserve.

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