Good News is No News
0 This innocuous quote adds no substance. It clarifies nothing that has gone before and foreshadows nothing on the horizon. We expect the superintendent to be ready to proceed. Here’s something readers would like to know: Half a million is what portion of the overall budget? Half? 10 percent? Something in between? It makes a difference.
0 If I thought it would do any good, I’d scold the writer for using “impact” as verb. But I’m really looking forward to finding out about the “list of cuts” that will “least impact” education, so I’ll move on.
Small-town, family owned newspapers tend to tread lightly. I understand that. After all, publisher, editors, and reporters all belong to the same Rotary and Red Cross organizations as their sources. They see each other at Wal-Mart. Advertisers and sources operate restaurants where nice newsmen eat and garages where the family van is serviced. But that’s not a reason to surpress news the community needs and wants to know. Today’s example is last night’s school board meeting.
DESOTO COUNTY — School Superintendent Adrian Cline announced last night that because of shortfalls in state revenues, the state is asking the school district to make cuts in its budget amounting to $511,000.
0 The state did not ask the school district to cut the local budget. The state said it was sending less money down the pike. If the district had found money elsewhere, it could well have kept its budget intact. I’m not saying that’s possible; my point is the state did not, in fact, ask the district to reduce its budget.
The good news is, the district will not be laying off any personnel in order to meet the cuts.
0 Not necessairly. It’s bad news if deadwood, malingerers or the unqualified remain on the payroll another year. I’m not saying such goldbricks exist in our little town. I am saying second-sentence editorializing doesn’t serve the reader.
The School Board met in a workshop two weeks ago to prepare possible cuts that would be the least hurtful in the event such a request came from the state
“We’re ready to proceed with cuts as prepared,” Cline told the board.
At the workshop, the board drew up a list of cuts that would least impact students’ education.
“We had a group that looked at our entire budget to see what we could cut from the budget or not implement from the new budget to try to save that money in anticipation of the state cutting us, which obviously they did,” said School Board Chairman Ronny Allen.
Allen said the cuts came to $552,000 at that time. Since then, the cuts requested had dropped.
He said the board could “look at every single employee opening that comes open and see if we could have that task done by an existing employee or by not implementing certain programs that do not directly impact students’ education.
“We’re going to go ahead and implement the cuts now that we’ve heard from the Legislature.” Allen said. “Right now, legislators are trying to see if the cuts they’ve requested are enough to meet their revenue crisis.”
“But we are not handing out any pink slips like the surrounding counties are,” Allen said. “I don’t think the general public is aware of it, but the surrounding counties are dropping pink slips right and left.”
On another notable matter, the School Board gave final unanimous approval for the purchase of V-Soft, a Web-based software application that has been developed with the purpose of aiding educational facilities in tracking their visitors, students and faculty.
0 I’ll skip the grammar, punctuation, style, and jargon issues. I sure wish I knew exactly what those darn budget cuts were. The software was developed by Raptor Technologies Inc. of Houston, Texas. “V-soft not only provides an effective, efficient method for tracking, but also goes beyond conventional applications by utilizing available public databases to help control campus security,” Raptor states. According to V-soft, visitors to a campus would have their driver’s licenses scanned when they check into a school. The software then compares the driver’s license data against databases and prints out a disposable photo identification badge.The value of the purchase is $20,000, to provide and deliver Web-based visitor security identification software access, hardware, accessories and technical support.
The program enables school districts to check for registered sex offenders as people enter campus.
The system checks on only sex offenses, not other criminal information such as traffic tickets or warrants.
So, what about those budget cuts?
