Mr. Gold is Badly Misguided

Reading Selectman Gold's letter to the editor in this week's Longmeadow News gave me a very acute case of déjà vu.  The Selectboard's present efforts to meddle in the school budget process is a mistake that Selectboards apparently find irresistible every few years. I will try to explain as clearly as I can why Mr Gold's argument for a "level funding" school budget is a very bad idea.

First, I can't help marvel at Mr. Gold's explanation for why "every town department" should be level "funded" in Fiscal 2014. Apparently, the Selectboard has decided that we should fund "capital" infrastructure improvements out of the town's "operating" budgets.  What were the reasons for this almost comically irresponsible budget "strategy?" The cost of bonding for all the needed improvements would have been very high, twice as much as for the new high school, and "it was felt that a way had to be found to begin to include the cost of these capital repairs in the general operating budget so that we could tackle these infrastructure issues over time without exceeding the Proposition 2&1/2 levy limit."

That's right, the board didn't want to capitalize the cost of capital projects because they didn't want to burden the taxpayers with additional taxes. Of course, if the taxpayers are unwilling to pay for these improvements, they could tell us that themselves in the Prop 2&1/2 override vote that would be required to fund these capital improvements properly.

Sadly, what is really at play here is sour grapes. Mr. Gold was among those who opposed the new High School project.  He argued at the time that it would crowd out these very infrastructure improvements now being discussed.  So, by not taking the case for an override to the voters, Mr. Gold and his allies get to preserve their very weak political argument against the new High School, while at the same time extracting their pound of flesh from those evil pro-school people by poaching the schools' operating budgets.
The politics of this budget battle are indeed sad, but we don't need to settle for exposing Mr. Gold's political immaturity here because his proposed treatment of the schools' budget fails spectacularly on the merits as well.

Mr. Gold states that "all town departments, from accounting to zoning, from Parks and Recreation to schools, prepare a fiscal 2014 budget at the same level as fiscal 2013."  Just in case you missed his clear implication that the School Department should budget the same way every other town department budgets, Gold continues, "in fact, all the town departments except the School Department met that budget directive." Less than three paragraphs into a very long letter to the editor and Mr. Gold has already revealed a shocking ignorance of public budgeting theory and practice, not to mention the clear intent of state law.

Notice that Mr. Gold chose to use the non-specific "level budget" terminology instead of the more precise (not to mention honest) term, "level funding" budget. Public budgeters are familiar with the very important difference between a "level-funding" budget and a "level-services" budget.  In fact, there are only two reasons for failing to specify precisely and clearly which one is being referred to in a public budgeting situation. Either the speaker lacks a very basic understanding of public budgeting or the speaker is intentionally being obtuse. In Mr. Gold's case, I think both apply.

The difference between level "funding" and level "service" budget formats is that the former gives a department the same dollar amount as the previous fiscal year, while the latter gives the department the amount of funds necessary to provide the same level of services as the previous year. The appropriateness of the choice between the two formats centers on the issue of "measurability." How precisely can the satisfactory delivery of an agency's services be quantitatively measured for the purposes of optimizing the efficiency of resource allocation decisions?  If it is easy to predict and measure the cost of the successful achievement of an agency's mission, then a "funding" budget is right and proper.  When such a department consistently ends the fiscal year with unspent funds, there are surely savings to be found.  When satisfactory service delivery is not easily predicted, quantified, classified, and prioritized, a "services" budget is much more prudent.  Mr. Gold thinks the satisfactory delivery of K through 12 education is sufficiently predictable and uncomplicated to impose the same level funding budget "directive" on the Schools as has been imposed on the DPW.  You may be thinking me unfair here. Surely Mr. Gold understands that budgeting for the "satisfactory" education of kids cannot be reduced to per unit costs and benefits, like paving sidewalks or mowing lawns?

In his Longmeadow News treatise, Mr. Gold catalogs "four reasons" why the schools should budget like every other department: payroll attrition, declining enrollments, consistent turn backs by the School Committee, and the existence of dedicated fund accounts controlled by the School Committee.

His (mis)understanding of the budgetary impact of "declining enrollments" provides the most vivid and disappointing example of just how little Mr. Gold knows about running a school system. He argues that declining enrollment over the last five years (down 499 students systemwide since 2005) is prima facia evidence that the cost of educating our kids has gone down.  He writes that "neither school department staffing nor funding reflects that enrollment reduction." He drives his point home by telling us that over the same time period "the school department's non-cafeteria staffing has increased as has their overall budget by over 10%."

It is beyond Mr. Gold's comprehension that a reduction in the number of recipients of a service (even apparently a wide range of complex services) would not ipso facto reduce the cost of providing said services. Unfortunately, the members of the School Committee and the schools' administrators have to base their decisions on the complex realities of operating a high quality public school system, not on the Selectboard's childish inability to understand the difference between running a school and running a public works department.

The folks elected by the entire citizenry as the stewards of our schools, as well as the highly trained professionals who run those schools, have for YEARS tried to explain reality to Mr. Gold, and others like him.  How could he not understand? He's a grown man for Christ's sake. Unfortunately, the only reasonable explanation is one Mr. Gold constantly, reflexively, denies. He doesn't believe them. He believes that they are either incompetent or are operating in bad faith; unnecessarily wasting taxpayers money. He believes this because to him it CANNOT POSSIBLY cost 10% more to educate 2800 kids in 2013 than it did to educate 3300 kids in 2004.

Ever try to explain to a nine year old why her allowance is less that her 14 year old sister's, or why her bedtime is earlier? Watching pols like Gold argue with professional education administrators about school budgets is like watching a petulant child arguing with very patient parents trying desperately to explain that their child's notion of fairness is neither fair nor prudent.

One of the reasons Massachusetts law invests so much responsibility in elected school committees for the management and operation of our schools is to protect our schools from know-it-all, self righteous, politicians like Mr. Gold, who understands nothing about the expert management of high quality public schools, but doesn't know that he knows nothing. Mr. Gold thinks the schools should compete with every other town department for funding and that treating the schools differently amounts to giving special treatment to some of our townspeople over others. Thanks to Proposition 2&1/2 local politicians like Mr. Gold have for decades now (unintentionally perhaps) pitted taxpayers with kids in the schools against taxpayers without kids in the schools in order to enforce their misdirected efforts to be careful stewards of taxpayers' money. In reality, these efforts can charitably be described as "penny wise and pound foolish."

Gold faults the School Committee for having routinely given back unspent funds to the town at the end of the budget year. He boasts "that the Selectboard has worked hard to minimize turn backs, and with a track record of consistent turn backs it was felt that better budgeting would prevent us from raising tax money that wasn't going to be spent." Does Gold believe that the money turned back evaporates, or is somehow wasted simply because it didn't become available sooner? Does he suppose that taxpayers oppose increasing our rainy day funds and improving our bond rating?

He thinks the school committee (who unlike the Selectboard serve without any financial compensation) should be compelled to more precisely estimate their costs ahead of time, just like the Selectboard has. So, Gold not only doesn't understand the difference between the school department and the DPW, he also assumes that the School Committee can do their job more efficiently then they do at present simply because the Selectboard realized that it could.

Mr. Gold thinks "contingency" budgets should be smaller in the school department. What remains unclear, however, is how "better budgeting" in the School Department's budget planning stage will save taxpayers any money at all.  The level of precision, in terms of budget planning, that Mr. Gold wants to impose on "every department" will not impact the administration of every department equally.  School department planners are dealing with variables infinitely more difficult to predict and measure quantitatively than are planners at the DPW. In all likelihood, Mr. Gold's wrong headed egalitarianism (or petty spitefulness) would require the School Department to divert resources from more mission critical operations to budget planning.  He defends his argument about reducing turn backs from the schools by pointing out that the School Committee, unlike the Selectboard, has "line item flexibility," which he apparently assumes "frees" them from the uncertainty that justifies contingency budgeting in the first place.  Did it ever occur to Gold that the schools' budget rules are more flexible than the Parks Department FOR A REASON! Does it ever occur to some children that they can't (and more importantly, shouldn't) have everything they want simply because some other kid has it?

He also wants school administrators to stop wasting so much time thinking about how to improve our kids education in a rapidly changing world, and instead to spend more time figuring out (more precisely that they currently do) how many teachers will retire during the year, so they can ask for less in their annual budget proposal.

Finally, Gold believes it is reasonable to impose a level funding budget on the schools because of the existence of "designated fund accounts" controlled by the School Committee. He wants the School Committee to raid these funds to create one time reductions in the schools' budget proposal for the purpose of helping the "general government" (i.e. the departments run by the Selectboard) balance their budgets.  That's right, he doesn't like the idea of the School Committee having money in the bank, so to speak, while the Selectboard doesn't. Gold didn't suggest the funds from the LHS Parking Lot account be used to reduce the oppressive fees we charge our students for extracurriculars; he wants that $40,000 to go to the non-school departments budgets because....well......because the School Committee shouldn't get to have or do stuff that he and the Selectboard cannot.  Pitiful.

Pols like Gold, who pander to anti-tax political sentiment without regard to the substantive realities of public budgeting and finance, make me wish a schools superintendent would channel Jack Nicholsen while testifying about the budget before the Selectboard. I would love to hear a bone fide expert on education administration tell Mr. Gold that she would prefer that he and his fellows respond to the School Department's budget by "just saying thank you" and then "going on [their] way."

Unfortunately, because he doesn't agree with the duly elected officials in whom the town's voters (not just the voters with kids) placed the job of overseeing the operation of the schools, Mr. Gold takes it upon himself to meddle in affairs about which he knows nothing. It's time for the town's voters to meddle with the composition of the Selectboard, replacing Mr. Gold with someone who knows more, or with someone who at least knows what he doesn't know.