A lot of folks may think editorials are merely a matter of the way something strikes us at a given moment, or our personal preferences or prejudices, or whatever. I hope not too many people have such misconceptions, but I can understand what might lead some folks to leap to such erroneous conclusions. After all, unlike news stories — which strive to tell you every relevant thing a reporter could learn about an event or issue — editorials tend to be like icebergs: You only see a fraction of their substance. Editorials aren’t very long, and what space they do take up is largely used for argument — rhetoric, if you will — leaving little room for the many facts that went into the conclusion being presented. Most of that remains below the water line.
So it is that I thought I’d use my blog today to show you some of the raw material that went into our editorial today on our state’s school bus problem. For some, this will strengthen the point we’re making. Others will remain unmoved. In fact, some of the more ardent despisers of our public school system and all who sail in her will object to the fact that most of the information I’m showing you came from the state Department of Education. To these fantasists, that impeaches the testimony right off the bat. Well, let me start by telling you, and them, three critical facts:
- I went to the Department of Education for a reason similar to the one that (allegedly) motivated Willie Sutton to rob banks: Because that’s where the information is. These are the folks who know the bus system, and the finances involved, far more intimately than anyone else.
- And this one is going to shock the anti-school crowd: No one at the Department of Education has ever lied to me. If they have, they certainly haven’t been caught, despite the legions of people out there who would like to catch them. In fact, they are obsessive about making sure I get each fact exactly right. If they tell me something wrong, they’re on the phone setting it straight before I realize the error — and well before I’ve published it.
- They didn’t "put me up" to this. In fact, to the contrary. Jim Foster and Betsy Carpentier — especially Ms. Carpentier — kept telling me how happy they were with the level of funding they got this year, because it will enable them to operate the buses, something that looked in doubt at some points in the budgeting process. They’re satisfied, for the moment, though they know that there’s a day of reckoning coming if we don’t get on a regular bus replacement schedule. My colleagues on the editorial board and I are the ones who are disgusted at the situation.
Anyway, all that said, here are some things I learned in the course of researching and writing the editorial, with links to the raw source material:
- It all started with an Associated Press story that ran in the paper, in part, on Tuesday, July 5. I wrote a blog item about it that very morning. We learned more on Wednesday from a story by The State‘s own Bill Robinson, which confirmed that the sale of the used buses had taken place, and added other details, including political reaction.
- On Friday of that week, a colleague shared with me another story from the Charleston paper that added this point of interest: South Carolina runs the oldest buses in the nation. This was attributed not only to those "educrats" over at the state department, but to a group called the Union of Concerned Scientists. This group has a thing about old school buses, so it’s kind of embarrassing to see them single out S.C. for yet another such dubious distinction.
- I felt like this would be a pretty easy editorial. A few numbers to check out, nothing more. I certainly knew the background: It’s been years since the General Assembly has provided sufficient funds to replace buses on a reasonable schedule that keeps them safe and reliable. Then, alerted by an e-mail from SCHotline, I ran across this item. It was the usual ranting you get from right-wing talk radio, but since this guy was directly challenging things I had assumed were fact, I decided to throw his piece at the DOE and see how it reacted.
- Jim Foster reacted by saying, "I’ve been dealing with that claptrap for several days. It’s a crock." He backed that up with this point-by-point rebuttal.
- He also sent along this spreadsheet showing what the Legislature had appropriated for buses, and how it had appropriated it — basically, in a way that pretended to fund new bus purchases, but actually only provided a total amount that matched what was needed to fuel and operate existing buses, except for about $3 million in unclaimed lottery prize money.
To sort of walk you through that last document: The key line is line 25 (row 6 in the Excel file), entitled OTHER OPERATING EXPENSES. This refers to just about everything it takes to operate and maintain the current fleet of buses, from fuel to parts. Follow that out to the right, and you’ll see (column L) that it cost $40.7 million to operate the buses this past year. The state education department estimated that with rising costs, it would take $47.75 million (column M) in fiscal year 2006 to do no more than it did in 2005. This was of course a moving target. Diesel fuel had cost a lot less when the department had put in its initial request at the required time — last September. Since then, Inez Tenenbaum had been updating lawmakers on the changing situation. So what did the department actually get for operating expenses under this item? Check row 6, column C, and you’ll find it was about $9.5 million. Kind of short, right?
This is where it gets tricky. Rows 12, 14, 15, 16 and 18 provide more funds for operation. Lines 12, 14 and 18 appear to provide funds for purchasing buses, but the provisos allow the department to use the money for current bus operations if it needs to — which it does, since it only got $9.5 million for that purpose when it needed $47.75 million. Lastly, in columns G and H you’ll see the state department is authorized to collect $7.3 million from local districts for bus operations — if the districts have it (Ms. Carpentier said she was sure the department would get its money).
I’m just going to hurry through the rest. I’m also throwing in:
- A spreadsheet that shows how, while diesel costs have gone up over the past three years, the General Assembly has appropriated less and less for fuel and other operating expenses (Row 11, OTHER OPERATING EXPENSES.)
- Another that details diesel price averages over the last few years.
- Another chart that shows how many buses and what type of buses the state has bought each year since 1979.
I also had a rather lengthy study of what the state should do regarding replacing buses, and a handy chart that showed bus purchases over time a little more simply than the spreadsheet above. But I can’t seem to find the PDF of that study at the moment, and there’s nobody here at 10 p.m. to show me how to turn the handy chart (which came as a fax) into a PDF. I’ll add those to this posting Monday, if anyone’s that interested.
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There is no excuse for the state not budgeting enough to replace the busses on an annual retirement schedule. I drove a school bus when I was in the 11th and 12th grade. Nothing has changed. School administrators are grossly inept and the school boards are just lackeys of these incompetent managers.
How I wish that “school boards [were] just lackeys of [school administrators]” as the previous commentator suggests. If that statement was true, then District Five of Richland and Lexington Counties would still have Dennis McMahon, a superintendent of undisputed positive performance, at the helm. I adamantly disagree with Lee’s post, not in that there is a desperate need to replace old buses on a regular schedule, but rather in that school administrators are inept. The school administrators are not the ones witholding the funding for the replacement of buses or any other worthwhile investment. On the contrary, they are the ones left to try to convince the public to fill the financial gaps left by the legislature, a task that often paints them as big spenders without a public conscience. I think one would find upon further observation, that school administrators are, for the most part, careful stewards who are grateful for whatever the state provides as they have come to expect next to nothing in the way of state-provided funding.
District 5 finally threw out the lackeys and is trying to clean up the district. They may not be doing the best job, but it is better Richland One, which is packed with spendthrifts who have done nothing to put standard accounting practices in place.
Regarding the school busses, my point is that borrowing money to catch up is an admission of management failure to maintain the fleet on a pay-as-you-go basis.