In recent months, a critic of the school budget, brandishing complicated charts, has alleged that the budget is “padded” (to use one of his terms).
I won’t try to answer every misstatement I’ve heard from this critic. To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., there are times when we need an education in the obvious more than we need to investigate the obscure.
And so I’ll try, allegorically, to address the heart of his complaint.
There was a homeowner, who had a full tank of heating oil. At the end of a moderate winter, he found that he still had heating oil left over — about a quarter of a tank.
The following fall, he planned to fill the tank again, not knowing for sure that he could count on another mild winter. He thought it was a sensible thing to do.
His wife’s grumpy old uncle, who lived with the homeowner and his family, and contributed to the household expenses, objected. “You’re wasting my money!” he said. “You’re cheating me!” he said. “You don’t need a full tank. You only used three-quarters of a tank last year!”
And so, to keep the peace, the homeowner bought only half a tank of heating oil. With what was left over from the past year, his tank would be three-quarters full, which would be enough to get him through an average winter.
But it turned out to be a brutally cold one. Toward the end of January, he ran out of fuel. “Call the heating oil delivery man,” his wife pleaded. But he couldn’t — fuel was delivered only once a year.
Meanwhile, his crabby old uncle was breaking up the kids’ beds and dressers and burning them to stay warm.
They somehow survived, but the following fall the homeowner called the heating oil company and asked them to deliver enough oil to fill his tank.
“I can only deliver three-quarters of a tank,” the deliveryman said.
“But I don’t want to get caught short again,” said the homeowner.
“Sorry, but I don’t make the rules,” the deliveryman said.
And so, although the homeowner bought one year of peace, his kids continue to sleep on the floor, and he’s back to buying three-quarters of a tank of heating oil every year.
The moral of the story: Don’t believe everything your crabby old uncle tells you.
The homeowner is the school board, trying to plan sensibly for the future.
The leftover fuel oil is the budget surplus, which goes into the following year’s budget. Over the past five years the school board has returned $25 million to taxpayers through this form of tax relief.
Once-a-year fuel oil delivery is our once-a-year budget vote. If we don’t plan well, we can’t go back to the voters for emergency funds. An unexpected spike in expenses would require drastic cuts mid-year that would do real damage to our educational program. The “rule” that prevents the delivery man from bringing a full tank the next year is the state budget cap.
And because of severe limitations on year-to-year budget increases, it is virtually guaranteed that that damage could never be reversed.
Finally, while stripping the budget is an accounting gimmick that could provide a one-time tax break, lost programs and an inability to deal with an emergency would be a permanent condition of our finances.
Robert Johnson
The writer is vice president of the WW-P School Board, and chair of the Administration and Facilities Committee. Board policy 0146 requires that he state that “the opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of the Board.”
