More Strange Math from Clark Schools
January 11th, 2008You have to hand it to Walt Ruffles, the superintendent of the Clark County School District. He is shameless.
There are many ways to describe school funding, but one of the simplest is to break it down into [Legislated $$ per Student] times [Number of Students].
Because growth has slowed in Nevada, growth in the number of students has slowed as well.
And bad estimates of revenue (in excess of population growth and inflation) last year led the legislature to plan on spending more money than government is getting now, so the Governor is reducing all state government spending plans accordingly - about 4.5%.
Yesterday, Ruffles complained that his share of budget reductions is almost double the 4.5% because his enrollment growth is down (Review-Journal). Apparently, he should get to keep the “dollars per student” for students who never showed up.
The reality of Ruffles’ bleat for more money is in the sixth paragraph of the story:
Even with the cuts, spending on public schools this year is $221 more per student than last year, said Keith Rheault, state superintendent of public instruction.
That’s the largest increase in K-12 spending since 2003 - in a time of increasingly extreme hardship for Nevada’s working families. What does Ruffles want - to make their economic woes worse by raising their taxes?
Here’s the really shameful part: Ruffles is saying this stuff as he engineers big pay hikes for several of his best friends at the Ed Shed, adds three new Educrat positions, and even creates a new position of Associate Superintendent (at a staggering public salary) for the head of his lobbying and PR department.
January 11th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Oh yeah, “Walt spent $54 million on software last year, with an additional $84 million in reserve for software.”
Hey I wonder if Walt has a few dollars to put towards an audit
I bet we would quickly find him a solution to his budget crunch.
January 12th, 2008 at 8:50 am
There is enough cabling and internet wiring in these Elementary Schools to secure a credit card processing company. It’s a total waste of money. K-2 students can’t even type; what in the world are they trying to secure? .. CCSD needs to put a stop to letting administrators promote their incompetent friends which only adds to the amount of work NOT getting done and the wasteful spending.
Save CCSD. Put an end to nepotism, favortism, and wasteful spending. And, somebody tell Walt he needs to start working WITH the legislature instead of AGAINST them.
January 12th, 2008 at 9:43 am
This reminds me of some of the union scams that worked so well: pay off the union thugs by putting several fictitious employees on the payroll. I guess it could work with students you don’t have, too.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
How much of the FORECASTED budget increase has been spent on increased wages and newly created positions since thwe initial 20 percent increase was made known?
The net 15.5 percent just will not pay these salaries and the projected retirement for out FAT CAT Education group!
Maybe we should take away the entire budgat increase and see if the raises are reversed!
Now, there’s a thought!
January 21st, 2008 at 11:14 am
Hey Walt: How about returning to Math 101?
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Bob,
How likely is it that we can get a “transparency in government” bill passed next session. (see NPRI newsletter)
Sounds like a winner to me.
Brent