Tuesday, April 05, 2011

CCSD's Mixed Signals to Ordinary Taxpayers



  • Just when the Charleston County School District had almost convinced John Q. Taxpayer that it really is short of cash to run the district, comes the latest spending atrocity: potential I-Pads for every student.

  • Yes, you can believe your eyes: for every student. Wow, we must be a really wealthy district!

  • The insane nightmare that funds school districts in South Carolina just gets worse and worse. Thanks to how capital funds are raised, not to mention the new one-percent sales tax, CCSD is rolling in extra capital funds. How to spend them! [hand-wringing] Oh, how to spend them!

  • Why, yes! I-Pads can be paid for with capital funds. How jolly.

  • Those who keep their finger on the district's pulse know the firewall that exists between capital and operating funds, but it's useless to repeat that only the ignorant will recoil at this unnecessary use of tax dollars. Common sense itself is moribund.

  • And why does the district have $2 million lying around to use anyway? Bill Lewis's personal slush fund?

  • Would anyone like to guess what percentage of I-Pads would be accounted for and still working at the end of one semester?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Babbie, where did you get that photo of the Christmas tree decorated with traffic lights. Great simile for this story of CCSD waste and excess.

Anonymous said...

I want to know if these new toys will be distributed to charter school students, too. Fair is fair. CCSD is supposed to make available whatever it has across the board. Or are some schools more equal than others?

Anonymous said...

Who cares about everybody getting their "fair is fair" share? This is insane. The waste just keeps going and going and going and going...

Anonymous said...

If anyone wants to talk about waste, here are some real winners. Bill Lewis gets more than a 15% raise last year and then wants us to feel his pain because he is voluntarily taking a one time 6% cut this year only, as an unpaid vacation. Then ask him why taxpayers are having to pay for roof replacements on 2 schools ten years early. Is this what he calls under budget and on time? It looks like shoddy workmanship that taxpayers get to pay for again, only later. Why no warranty? Who approved the installation? Don't know! Yep, you'll get back to us. But Bill Lewis gets a $25,000 a year raise and taxpayers get stuck with another half million dollar repair job that should have been done right the first time. Now the facilities director wants to give every student and i-pad and take it out of the building fund. Tell that to the people in substandard school buildings waiting for the next round of construction by out-of-state contractors who take the profits with them. Not to worry, Mr. Bill, it's just OPM, Other People's Money.

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hijack your post, Babbie, but is the Dean of MUSC, Dr. Etta Pisano, under investigation by the FBI and the AG?

http://www.fitsnews.com/2011/04/05/musc-hire-another-higher-ed-scam/

Will Folks broke the story yesterday. For some reason, the P&C has been "holding" it.

Anonymous said...

Great reporting useless courier! no facts - all guesswork - wrong assumptions - as usual wrong conclusions! i regret i don't have a cyber puppy to put the useless courier to productive use.

Babbie said...

It's too busy kowtowing to Joe Riley by printing Gregg Meyers's Commentary on the School Board.