April 23rd / 25th
"Dell Refund Should Go to Schools"
Earlier this month during his visit to Charlotte, President Obama
announced, "we are beginning to turn the corner". His statement followed the
release of a Labor Department report showing that 162,000 non farm jobs had been
created in March. The President's optimism was understandable because this
time last year, we were losing 750,000 jobs per month. But there are
several reasons why we shouldn't buy into Obama's analysis.
First of all, nearly one third of those new jobs he cited were comprised
of Census workers, who will once again be unemployed in a few months.
Second, an ever increasing number of people have stopped looking for work that
doesn't exist, which means they don't show up in the unemployment figures. As
a result, the actual unemployment rate is close to 16%. Third, what little
progress we've made to temporarily stabilize our economy is due in large
measure to the $787 billion dollar stimulus package, and that money is all
but gone. That brings us to the crisis in education.
Over the past year, public school systems throughout the nation have
relied on stimulus monies to keep them afloat, but now they must prepare to cope
without benefit of those funds. Thus far, 29 states and the District of
Columbia have announced significant cutbacks.
Georgia is cutting $444 million from its total K-12 budget.
Nevada is eliminating funding for gifted and talented programs.
Illinois is reducing funding for early childhood education.
Maryland is going to cut health clinics as well as math and science
initiatives.
Massachusetts is slashing programs for special needs kids.
And in Michigan, the city of Detroit is poised to shutter 44 schools at
the end of June.
Here in North Carolina, we're already operating with overcrowded
classrooms and 3,700 fewer teachers than last year, and that's with the stimulus
money. Charlotte and other cities have been particularly hard hit. Not so in
Winston-Salem Forsyth County schools, where stimulus money and expert
financial guidance from the system's CFO have avoided the necessity for
lay-offs.
But that will change this Fall if someone doesn't ride in on a white horse
with a bunch of cash. That's because Governor Perdue (who had already
absconded with some of the Education Lottery money to rescue State shortfalls)
announced that WSFCS would have to cut $5.4 million dollars from its
budget. That was followed by Forsyth County commissioners predicting they would
have to pull back $2 million dollars from the schools. And last week, the
Governor revised her estimates, demanding that Superintendent Don Martin
slash $10.6 million dollars from his budget, not the $5.4 million as originally
required. That means, Winston-Salem/Forsyth is now facing a deficit of at
least $13 million dollars for the upcoming school year. According to school
CFO Kerry Crutchfield, these cuts could eventually result in the loss up
to 100 teachers, and dozens of support staff, plus significant furloughs for
others. The Winston-Salem Journal editorial staff put it best, "firing
teachers to save money is akin to eating our seed corn". Fortunately, it may
not come to that if local officials direct some new found money to the
schools.
Back in 2005, state and local governments gave Dell over $30 million
dollars in various incentives to locate a plant in Forsyth County. But Dell's
recent closure required the company to refund $7.9 million dollars to the
county, and another $15.5 million to the City. It's a no-brainer. The two
governing bodies should simply transfer the bulk of those refunds to the
schools. But sometimes brains are in short supply. Some commissioners have
suggested we use the Dell money to reduce property tax, but that would only net
each county resident about $23 dollars. Others have proposed to spend the
refund on a "jobs" program. But what better jobs program is there, than one
which keeps hundreds of people off the unemployment rolls? As Superintendent
Martin told me,(in using the DELL money),"we would be saving jobs now, and
preparing young people for jobs later".
City/County officials are sitting on top of a $23 million dollar windfall,
and there's no reason why $13 million of that can't be sent to the schools
immediately.
Failure to do so would be tantamount to malfeasance, and voters would be
justified in turning out any elected official who neglected to protect
hundreds of education jobs. The Dell refund represents taxpayer dollars that
could have gone to schools in the first place, so transferring them now makes
sense. To do otherwise just doesn't compute.
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