Budget Crisis, What Budget Crisis? (updated)

I hear from teachers all the time about how few funds there are in their schools.  While PWCS doesn’t like us to talk about it, many schools continue to ration copy paper.  Toner for printers is increasingly difficult to attain.  Those of us with children in the school system have all seen how overcrowded our classrooms are.

Lately we’ve been hearing that the school system as we know it may cease to exist if the 1.3% tax increase is approved.  Everything is on the chopping block; from full-day kindergarten and specialty programs to middle school sports and extra-curricular activities.

With money this tight, why then would PWCS send the following home with every single child in the public school system:

 

This is a two sided, legal size, color flyer, printed on high quality glossy paper.  Not the cheap-o cool paper you can buy at Walmart for a few dollars.  Not black and white.  Not even letter size.  Nope.  Legal sized.  Glossy paper.  Color copy.  Two sided.  Given to every child in our school system to take home to their parents.

What was so important that PWCS had to go to the time and expense to prepare, review, print, and distribute this to every single one of the 86,000 plus students enrolled in our school system?

The evil BOCS has threatened to only increase taxes and the school division’s budget by 1.3% next year and the increase isn’t enough.  PWCS wants more.  Lots and lots more, because they’ve squeezed every penny dry and there isn’t anything left to squeeze out.

Except they were able to find the money to proceed and distribute this flyer.

An email would have been sufficient.  That’s all PWCS has sent in the past.  This year, despite the financials hardships under which the school division is operating, a legal sized, glossy, two-sided, color flyer was mission critical.

If the message in this flyer was so vital that PWCS was willing to spend its scare resources producing it, then I question their ability to accurately gauge critical needs . If anyone in PWCS is wondering why their list of strategic programs and critical unmet needs has been scoffed at by the population in general, they need look no further than this flyer.

UPDATE:

Here’s a link to the fact sheet distributed to our students at taxpayer expense by our impoverished school system.

Click to access Budget%20Proposal%20Facts.pdf