To their good credit, last year, commissioners didn't take the bait. They refused to give the board any more money and guess what? The money for the text books for the poor, poor little children was already in the budget. The text books were bought and all the little children got a great education. For lack of a better word, it was all a big lie. School administrators enabled by some school board members tried to defraud the commission. The reality was that school administrators enabled by some school board members were trying to sneak in about $750,000.00 in raises for school employees. Didn't work last year.
Fast forward to this year. Learning form their mistake last year, school administrators enabled by some school board members had to find another way to get money. The text book trick didn't work. Scratch head, scratch head, scratch head......AH-HA. "Uncontrollable Costs." That would work.
When school board members were first presented the new budget for this year, director of schools, Wayne Honeycutt, informed board members that before any budget issues could be considered, we have $772,899.00 in "Uncontrollable Costs." These "Uncontrollable Costs" included employees receiving advanced degrees $130,268.00, retirement rate increase $477,099.00, utility increases $51,844.00, insurance increases $113,688.00. For the sake of argument, let's just assume these numbers are accurate.
Ultimately, county commission took the bait and voted to give the school board $1,022,000.00 in new operating money. Director Honeycutt says we have $772,899.00 in "Uncontrollable Costs." If you do the math, looks like this leaves $249,101.00 for the board to work with. Ah but wait. You may not realize in the world of education, their math works different than everybody else's.
| $1,022,000.00 |
| -$772,899.00 |
| $249,101.00 |
Director Honeycutt presented the board with a document that he said shows the board has "$587,000.00 to work with." I'll sure admit that I'm not the smartest person in the world but only in education finance can you make math work out like this. Seems out of thin air, Honeycutt found an extra $337,899.00. Just enough to cover all the raises.
Last year commission didn't fall for the farce. Unfortunately this year they did or maybe the six commissioners that voted to give the school board that extra million dollars used the same math as the director.