The Flint School District will shell out $50,000 to pay a Southfield-based company to help it save money. The review by accounting and consulting firm Plante Moran is intended to analyze "personnel costs, financials, staffing, compensation, facility usage, utility costs and other expenses," according to board documents. (Flint Journal - Mlive, Blake Thorne)
The other night I and about fifty other parents, teachers and school administrators/staff, had the opportunity to be part of a “Dog and Pony show” performed by the accounting firm Plante Moran and school superintendant Linda Thompson. Disguised as a public hearing discussing ways to cut spending within our school system, the representative from Plante Moran did an outstanding performance in pretending interest over suggestions that ranged from how to implement energy saving cost to how to save ten cents on a ream of paper.
He even had me believing his interest in our suggestions, as he listened intently, questioned, and continually urged more suggestion. That was until he was asked the question “How long has he and Plante Moran been working as accounting consultants with school districts on their budget needs?” His reply, “We have, and I personally have been at it for thirty-two years.”
Thirty-two years! This man could write the book on how schools can cut their budgets!! Would he have us believe he does not already have a preconceived outline of budget cutting areas?
So why hold this public meeting, and why are we spending $50,000 on a consultant that we already know what they will be suggesting? COVER!
Holding a public meeting and hiring a consultant firm is nothing but cover for the school superintendent and the school board to hide behind as they announce their budget cuts! I can hear it know, “We are cutting teachers’ salaries, healthcare and closing school buildings based on the recommendations of an “outside” consultant firm. Don’t blame us for all the years we didn’t do our job, blame the imperial study by qualified accountants.”
I placed the word “outside” within quotation marks in the above paragraph for this reason; use of the word “Outside” seems to indicate that they will be examining a second, professional opinion. Just as one of our school board members suggested in a Mlive interview, “This is a second opinion. I think that a fresh look and a second opinion always helps."
More like a second opinion supporting their upcoming budget, always helps!
Let’s not kid ourselves, cuts are needed. Flint area schools have lost students in droves, either by families moving out of the area or lack of confidence in the public school system to educate our children. Yet, let’s not let the superintendant and the school board, kid us. The writing has been on the wall for years. Why have they waited until now, creating a need for “emergency” budget cuts? It’s because they haven’t been doing their job for years!
Let’s prophesies what their budget might look like. A budget that was mandated to be balanced, by state regulations, and one that has been continually delayed in its writing to the point that we’re in danger of having a “Emergency Manager” take-over our school system.
Closing of school building: understandable due to the lack of students.
Lay-off/firing or hiring freeze of schoolteachers: understandable due to the lack of students.
Cutting teachers pay: understandable due to the current State Government belief that if they lower the pay of professionals it will induce other qualified people to miraculously, want to become one!
Break the contracts with the Teachers’ Union: understandable due to the divine providence of our State Representatives and their belief that they can dishonor the contracts they once negotiated, in good faith.
Cut extracurricular activities: Yes, cut sports, cut music, cut skill center funds. They’re not going to help us reach mandated test scores (Scores that should be used as a diagnostic tool not THE TOAL baseline of how we evaluate the system.) therefore, they must not be needed in meeting a “Government (The few that know what we need better than we do) Directed”, well-rounded education!
We don’t need an emergence manager brought into our school system. We all know the first thing they will do! Lay-off all the administrators, their staffs, the superintendant, releasing the School Board of it’s duties, and cutting all personnel not directly related to the classroom education of our students: Marketing directors, Office of Communications, Business Office, Telecommunications, (unofficial count: 29 department, hundreds of employees, many of which are luxuries our school system can not afford). Then they will consolidate services, cutting-out redundancy of programs thereby, reducing staffing! Further, they will ferret out all those school principles that are not working with our teachers, supporting, empowering, and coaching them to be better educators. Shoot, they might even create an effective, unbiased teacher/principle and administrative evaluation criteria, one including test scores, grade level development, peer and parent assessment.
Conclusion: Everyone, from parents to teachers, administrators, and staff: if you have lost that burning desire to educate our children, having lost that wide-eyed enthusiasm that you once held in the belief that you can help change a young person’s life, then either leave the “Job” or rekindle the flame!
