And They Should Bring Back Bolted-Down Desks, Too

Taking down MN2020 has become a higher-concept version of what fact-checking Nick Coleman used to be; a rhetorical gravy train for regional bloggers.

I was going to go after our old friend John Fitzgerald’s piece on the effect of state aid cuts on the Waseca school district; they switched from permanent plastic lunch trays to disposable styrofoam ones, cutting six dishwashing jobs in the school’s cafeterias.

Fortunately, Craig Westover beat me to it.

And it’s not pretty:

As a conservative I mourn the loss of the traditional plastic lunch tray, cast on the ash heap of history with the once-indispensible slide rule and the ubiquitous pink “While you were out …” phone pad. It’s always sad when great traditions, like having a class valedictorian, die. Don’t we all miss the songs of happy field hands harvesting crops in the dark of night before greedy farmers replaced migrant workers with mechanized equipment?

Indeed, that miserly attitude is precisely what is rearing its ugly head right in Waseca public schools, according to the ever-vigilant Fitzgerald.

Remember – according to John Fitzgerald, the main advantage of district schools is their “accountability”, via their elected boards.

So we finally get accountability – cost savings in tough times – and…what?

Sure, washing trays requires “personnel, chemicals, water, heat and electricity to run 100 loads a day. At the junior high, a three-sink system has replaced the electric dishwasher to hand wash pots, pans and miscellaneous utensils with a wash, rinse, sanitize procedure.”And OK, switching to #6 Styrofoam trays means no more paper boats or cups or wax paper sheets needed, making the total garbage output smaller. Even with throwing the trays away, there is one less sack of garbage each lunch at the junior high. But six people are going to lose their jobs.

Such drastic cuts – reducing expenses and cutting waste — would not be necessary, says Fitzgerald, had not state cut Waseca school funding by an inflation-adjusted 14 percent. Without those cuts, there’d be money in the budget for benevolent hiring. But noooo. Fiscal accountability has, in a district like Waseca, made cutting jobs to save $30,000 in the budget “a big deal.”

Of course, this isn’t for yuks:

OK, time to get serious, because a person losing his or her job is serious. But from Fitzgerald’s article it is clear that putting resources into the six specific jobs lost at Waseca was consuming more of society’s wealth than was being produced. Fitzgerald wants the moral high ground because he can point to six specific (probably low-income) people who lost their jobs, but the economic reality is because the school is providing the same lunch service at less cost more resources are available for more productive uses. Somewhere, albeit unseen, someone will have a job that otherwise might not exist. (Maybe even a diversity counselor.)

Producing more for less is always better for the overall economy. What Fitzgerald seems to be saying is it is too bad the Waseca schools weren’t flusher so they could continue to operate without having to worry about doing things more efficiently and effectively. It’s too bad the school district can’t do a little benevolent job creation at public expense. It’s too damn bad that wishes aren’t horses.

And we wonder why the government-run public education system has become a money pit?

More on this later this week.

5 thoughts on “And They Should Bring Back Bolted-Down Desks, Too

  1. Perhaps since taxes were not raised anymore than they are now, a local businesman in Waseca can afford to expand, hiring 5 people. Those 5 spend enough money in Waseca so there is a net gain of 1 at local retail businesses. And those 6 pay enough in various state and local taxes so the school district can create a new position.

  2. Didn’t Obama make a similar statement about how evil businesses are forcing increases in productivity that are putting people out of work?

    Efficiency must be stopped at any cost!!!

  3. But…but…those are prime (and probably, union) jobs for government-education graduates that they’re eliminating! It’s not as if everyone can be a community organizer, you know.

  4. If the district hadn’t stepped in, they would have stood in front of those sinks for 30 years….a wasted mind is a terrible thing.

    Now those 6 poor souls that were trapped in a dead-end job are free to set their sights on new, more successful horizons.

    I wish them well in their endeavors.

  5. Let John Fitzgerald gather with his like minded friends, dig into their own pockets, and personally fund those benovelent jobs he so mourns!

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