Stimulus takes hold in schools

lanichol

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Just spent 4 hrs in a BOE meeting tonight. The Stimulus program takes hold in schools!

-We were given notice that the streets in front of the school will be milled and repaved. Why? Because the county applied for some stimulus money for "safe route to school" project. Waste of dollars.

-Notice that there were stimulus dollar to modify the school buses for “federal emission reductions”. I am not sure what can be done to diesel buses to reduce emissions.

-Now for the budget. Kansas has a balanced budget. Thus most counties have raised their property taxes and the state has cut the budgets to schools.

The stimulus program- “federal stabilization fund” makes up some of these dollars, but we must provide a list of teachers that would have been cut had we not had the federal dollars. Of course cutting teachers is the last resort and most schools would have not made such cuts. So now the school BOEs are forced to make up BS just like the authors of the Stimulus Bill. This is so the Obama administration can say they saved XX number of jobs. Had the stimulus not been available, then the state school budget cuts would not been so deep.

Now the problem with this is our LOB (local option budget – dollars from local taxes) is a fixed percent of the state budget dollars. Thus we are getting additional cuts since the state dollars are less.

We spent the night discussing cuts and voted to cut a few programs; “cross country, dance, and golf”. And we accepted some early retirements which will not be filled.

The state budget is not final. They believe state taxes will be another 400 million short which means more school cuts. Our area manufactures trailers & farm equipment - sales are at an all time low. One plant is at 2 days a week and another 30 hrs/wk per employee.

We are a small 1A school that is one of 6 schools in the state that received the governor’s ward 3 years in a row. We are one of the top 1000 schools in the US for the second year US News and World Report. Also we are the top 8 man football team in the nation with a state championship, and a state championship in basketball. Not bad for a school district with 350 kids.

My opinion, the House and Senate are spending dollars like drunken sailors (xxxx correction) Congressman. There is a major shrinkage in those extra dollars people have to spend. People and Small Business are preparing for new taxes and employments cuts. The dollars blown foolishly on the stimulus programs cannot compare to the damage the stimulus has cause to the economy. Nor can the stimulus jobs come close to replacing the real jobs lost.

Keynesian economics is foolish, the private sector if far more efficient than government.
 
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My opinion, the House and Senate are spending dollars like drunken sailors...

Larry, once again I must intervene to defend drunken sailors everywhere. There is no similarity whatsoever.

(1) Drunken sailors spend their own money.
(2) Drunken sailors stop spending when all the money is used up.
(3) Drunken sailors sometimes pass out before all the money is gone.
(3) When a drunken sailor awakes the next morning, he's the only one with a hangover, it doesn't last long, and he may feel remorse.
 
Paul, You are right! I corrected it the best I could.
 
It would be nice to see the number of kids coming into the school decrease.

Actually start to decrease the population.

Would this help our situation at all ?
 
In California, about 20,000 pink slips went out to public school teachers on March 13. The state is basically broke, and things would definitely be worse for education without federal stimulus money.

Our high school district came out far better than most because of high local property taxes and action by the teacher's union to defer 2% of pay, but still had to cancel over half of the summer school offerings, has a total budget of $0 for textbooks for 10,000 students next year, and will likely do lay-offs in March of 2010.
 
Keynesian economics is foolish, the private sector if far more efficient than government.

Dint the elite business interests played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles until the inevitable collapse, the great wealth that the private financial sector created and concentrated gave bankers enormous political weight only to archive a total financial collapse..

raton
 
When I went to High School in Kentucky, the state did NOT furnish books. If you wanted to get an education, you had to work for it. My dad could not afford the books, so I worked for others during the summer to earn enough to buy my school books and clothes. I did the same thing in College. My son-in-law, who is about 8 years out of college, asked me how long it took me to pay off my college loans. I told him I didn't have any loans from college, I worked and earned the money to go. It can be done. I personally believe that parents who pay for their kids to attend college, deprive them of the most important part of an education, learning how to make it on your own.
 
I personally believe that parents who pay for their kids to attend college, deprive them of the most important part of an education, learning how to make it on your own.

I agree, It generally seems people value things they have worked for more highly than what is given to them.
 
Tom,

I graduated high school in 1983.

I fell right into a job because I took welding classes and was ready to go to work when I was out of regular school.

Times were very bad in 1983 and we were in a recession then but I still found work.

Today kids have to compete with American adults and illegal mexicans on a much larger scale for jobs that used to go to "out of school for summer" kids.

The pickins are really thin now and the employment problem magnified since government chooses to not enforce border laws.

I take care of a dollar worked for much much better than one given.

It's where the saying "easy come easy go" comes from.

I took out loans to go to college and man I have to tell you that sure isn't an easy thing to pay back.

It is best to work your way through no matter how long it may take.

Knowing a good trade sometimes pays about the same as a college degreed person.

It's whatever makes a person happy is what I always say.
 
Mark-It's not just that the government won't protect our borders, but they have also passed laws that won't allow a teenager to do any "work." Minimum wage laws are useless as a help to adults, but they make a business owner pay one person at a low wage (that never will be a living wage, just getting by money) when he could have several school age people earning extra spending money and learning what the real world is while producing more for the business owner. It's just the difference between earners and takers.
 
federal law, (fair labor standards act) sets the age at 14, seems to me thats young enough. Most minimum wage jobs are held by young people and aliens.
 
I am sure the problems are the same across the country, and a few may find the following interesting.

Just shortend the school year by 4 days tonight in a special meeting. I am sure the kids will be disappointed. Our negotiations with the teachers was a very short discussion.

We may add 15 minutes to the day next year to shorten the school year by 11 days. We determine a 4 day school week did not fit the community.

The state House and Senate has been testing and trying numbers daily to balance the budget. Schools do make up 60% of our state budget.

As for the future, expect the best and plan for the worst. Schools are strange as their accounting calander year starts July 1st.
 
In Montana we have no sales tax. That means that there is not much change in tax revenues. The property tax in Montana is stable and we are not having a government short fall from the recession.
If other states would dump sales taxes and go to property taxes the other states would not suffer from economic down turns.
 
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