A slogan to run on

Well, now here's a slogan to print in all in the re-election materials:


Leominster mayor: Low school spending not my fault

Rowlands said the School Department is $246,000 under the net school spending, and that Leominster is one of only 20 communities in the state that failed to meet spending needs. 

Richard said Mazzarella's administration is not interested in blaming anybody but insisted the problem is not at City Hall.
Mazzarella's administration develops the budget, and the School Department has autonomy for managing and spending the money, Richard said."The budget I submitted to the City Council met net school spending, so we at least met, if not exceeded, net school spending, so it was really a spending issue," Mazzarella said.

So one of two things happened here: either the Council really didn't pass a budget that didn't meet Net School Spending requirements (which--ahem--has been known to happen) OR the city did meet NSS, but the schools didn't spend all that was allocated to them.
Guess who the one person who would be partly responsible in EITHER case, though?
Yep. Mayor Mazzarella. He chairs both committees, both of which have ultimate financial responsibility.


Can we agree that cutting it so close on NSS might not be the best way to deal with funding public education? That we're not really supposed to be in some fight to the death over who can possibly spend the least amount on educating the next generation? Particularly when we know that the foundation budget (which is the calculation that gives us NSS) is underfunded statewide by at least $2.1 billion?


with thanks for the link to one without a blog.