At the Smart Growth Plan meeting at Evansville City Hall on Wed, June 15, 2005, Michael Pierick, Evansville School Board member, and UW administrator, explained what the demographic and housing stock data in the Comprehensive Plan meant for the future of Evansville Schools. It was not a pretty picture.
He prefaced his comments by saying that Evansville has long prided itself in being a community with affordable housing and great schools. It cannot be assumed that this can continue given the data in the comprehensive plan.
He then went through the housing stock data for Evansville and demonstrated that a large majority of the housing is still of modest valuation. The emphasis on high quality construction is pretty new and the effect of the latest changes will take years to be seen.
Secondly, the demographics are such that the influx of elementary school students will soon be in middle school and this will present a big challenge.
The Comprehensive plan listed 2008 as the date to have concrete discussions with the school district on specific growth targets. Mr. Pierick stated that the time is NOW. The city did respond to his comments and made an adjustment in the implementation section of the Comprehensive Plan.
The Evansville Observer hopes to have Mr. Pierick present a article for public discussion on this topic in future posts.
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I think if the school board started cutting some of the 'fat, extra's' in the administration they would save alot of money., and could possibly put back some of the programs they have cut, like the summer school programs which alot of kids need and benefited from. But no they would rather have extra office help. Where I work we have been doing more with less for some time all so we can make our company successful. When a employee of 15 years retired this last year we did not replace her we divided up her responsibilities between us, saved the company 48,000.00 a year not having to replace her and it did not ad that much to our current responsibilities divided up between us. Part of the problem is the school's money issues they have done to them selves.
ReplyDeleteThe Summer School Programs were a huge benefit to the community. I also think that restoring them is worth cutting in other areas. However, I do not understand where the "fat" is in the budget. In a survey that was conducted some time ago, I remember people suggested that we could do without so many principals. Is that the "fat?" in the budget?
ReplyDeleteO.K., that was not real polite to say cut the 'fat'. But yes that is what I am talking about. I think the school could cut out some of the administration/office jobs and save quite a bit of money, and realize at the same time they don't really miss those postitions. It seems like even the secretary's at the school have assistants, come on.
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