The Commonwealth is right to keep state school funding short
The Boston Globe reports that Massachusetts is no longer going to pick whatever cost overruns local officials manage to come up with for building new schools. According to the article, the State picks up an average of 72% of the tab, a system that probably begs towns and cities to spend like sailors on shore leave.
This quote is rather telling, it seems to me:
‘Do I think the state can handle [an increase of] 13 or 14 percent? Probably not. But there has to be some recognition of this. They can’t put their heads in the sand,” Mayor [Robert] Dolan of Melrose said. ”I would totally agree that this program was out of control. But how can cities and towns be held responsible? It was a state-owned and managed program. The state created their own problem because they allowed it to get out of control.”
Local accountability just oozes out of there, doesn’t it?
When A orders the meal and B picks up most of the tab, you’ll probably see more lobster than meatloaf coming out of the kitchen. Indeed:
Katherine Craven, who is executive director of the School Building Authority, said there are plenty of ways that Newton and other cities could cut costs, and her agency is eager to help them do it. She said, for example, that while Newton is planning a roughly 400,000 square-foot high school for 1,750 students, Everett is building a 325,000 square-foot high school for 1,800 students.
In addition to constructing buildings that are too large, Craven said, many communities tend to include expensive flourishes that are not absolutely necessary. In November, an audit of new schools in Springfield highlighted expensive ornamental columns and glazed brick tile in hallways, for example.
A recent audit of the new Chicopee High School, near Springfield, found that officials had tried to bill the state for more than $1 million in ”ineligible” costs, including two golf carts, dumbbells, and the repair of a kiln.
Now, philosphically speaking, it’s a little unfair to pitch Everett against Newton like that. If I lived in Newton - which, God willing, will never happen - I’d expect students to have more space per student than does that town, Everett. However, as a third-party tax payer, I expect Newtonians to pay for their excess. But then again, don’t they anyway? I mean, state revenue per capita, I’m just making a wild guess here, but surely it’s substantially higher for Newton than for Everett?
Regardless, the way out of this mess is not to increase state spending across the board, but rather to limit state revenue and send it where it is need the most. The very most. Then Newton can keep its left-over money and spend it on the freaking Taj-Mahal of high schools, with an olympic-size swimming pool per 30 students, if the town’s comrades so desire.
Under no circumstances should state tax money be used to fund an irresponsible and fundamentally unnecessary local school-house bubble.
