On the hills of the discussion of the school building program at Monday's commission workshop, commissioner, Don Miller, presented the other commissioners with a handout (see below) that outlines the school board's past few years spending compared to a very low student enrollment increase over the same time period.

Some of Miller's figures included a 40% increase in expenditures over five years and an 85% increase in property tax dollars going to the school board over five years.

Miller asked commissioners to send a letter to the school board and administration for an explanation of why the increases are so high and also to ask that the board take some actions to rein in spending. Commission would also be asking for some projections of what the board's future spending might look like. Commissioner Austin Shaver told Miller he whole heartedly supported the letter to the board but that it was unfortunate that commission hadn't asked these questions before the commission approved another million dollars for the board just about a month ago.

No one can deny that this and past school boards have squandered millions and millions of dollars and it's high time that somebody gets held accountable for the waste. Problem is, the board and administrators can just ignore commission's requests as they have in the past. Commissioner Shaver noted that the commission has still not received the information they requested a year and a half ago about alleged "unfunded mandates." 

One of the most ironic issues I noted during this discussion was that some of the very commissioners who just voted to give the school board the million dollars that effectively killed the building program, seem now to want to know where the money went. A little late for that.

Foot Note: The News Herald had no one at this meeting.