The New York State Associated Press and other press organizations may go ga-ga over the flip editorials in The Post-Star but I know I'm not the only reader who's unimpressed.
I'm aware that writing editorials is not an easy job; I wrote a few for my college newspaper. Writing columns (essentially what I publish in this blog) is fairly straight-forward. Writing editorials is a bit trickier. Columns are the exclusive opinion of one person: the writer. Editorials are usually the collective opinion of the paper's editorial board. It's hard to write a concise opinion that reflects the consensus view of half a dozen people or more while still being focused and pointed. Yet surely The Post-Star can do more than the snarky offerings that show up on their editorial page.
Look at today's editorial (only available online to subscribers, unfortunately). The paper criticized school boards for not sufficiently cutting the fat out of school budgets. Many local school officials claim that their budgets don't contain much fat to cut but The Post-Star insists that it's a piece of cake.
I'm not criticizing the actual position the daily took. School board members are volunteers who spend a lot of time doing thankless tasks for free, like being the lightning rod when taxes are raised or negotiating with teachers' unions. I don't know enough about various local school budgets to know if there's a lot of fat in them or not. Sadly, The Post-Star's editorial (and its news reporting) didn't really illuminate me.
Ironically, the criticism of school boards on spending came only weeks after the paper urged voters in Glens Falls to APPROVE a $2.5 million project to install artificial turf and renovate the high school's football field. These improvements would've been useful but hardly essential. I realize that this would've resulted in bonds being issued, but the debt and interest still would've been paid for by school taxes that would've been raised in consequence. Voters obviously understood better than the newspaper the difference between necessity and luxury: they approved important renovations to school buildings but rejected the turf proposal.
The paper insists that cutting budgets is really easy. It offers an amazingly simple blueprint: A few minor purchases here, a part-time position there. Maybe live without that new computer for another year. Perhaps lower the thermostat a degree or two. Draw the line on excessive overtime. See if there are services being duplicated within the company that can be shared.
I don't know if I agreed with everything written in the editorial or even it's thrust, but it seemed like a fair commentary. Until you consider...
Not once did they give an actual, concrete example of 'fat' in local school budgets that could've been slashed. Not once did they cite a couple of purchases Fort Edward (where voters rejected the budget) could've lived without. Not once did they tell us how much overtime was being used up in Indian Lake (where voters did the same). If it were so easy to do and the fat so blindlingly obvious, certainly the paper's award winning editorialist could've shared suggestions with readers. The fact that the editorial was unable to offer a single example of wasteful spending means their criticism was a cheap shot. And a lazy one at that.
Somehow, I doubt AP contest judges will be shown this editorial.
1 comment:
As an ex-school board member I agree that it's difficult to identify 'fat' in a school budget. That being said, every year I was on the school board, the district had a hundred thousand or more to 'roll over' into the next year. There is only one place worth cutting, a very difficult place. Positions, salary and benefits. That's where 75-80% of the money is going.
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