Waste not, and still in want

At a meeting earlier today with representatives of Worcester's chapter of Stand for Children, City Manager Michael V. O'Brien told the group that they need to find the waste in the school budget, that he doesn't agree with the school administration's numbers.

Which numbers?
What waste?

We are talking about a school budget that has had $58 million dollars cut from it over the past six years.

• There are (after this year) no librarians below the high school level.
• Nurses travel between elementary schools
• The technology budget is virtually non-existent
• The supplies budget is ridiculously low
• On every side--teachers, support staff, janitors--the schools are badly understaffed.

If, somehow, with all these cuts, the School Committee is still somehow managing to "waste" money, then wouldn't it have been a good issue to raise during last fall's elections?

If, with all this, the Superintendent is "wasting" public funds, then perhaps that should have been raised during his last annual review?

Nonsense.

This is a smoke screen, designed to throw those who have been advocating for increased school funding off at the very last minute.

Don't fall for it.

You'll find a link to the right for contacting the City Manager. Get in touch with him BEFORE TUESDAY and ask:
Where is the waste?

And tell him that we're asking for 102%.
(Maybe next year we can manage 104%, like, say Fall River and New Bedford, with their slower rates of economic growth)