I suppose I needn’t say anything about this, but there is simply no end to the way District 150 baffles me. In their 2005 Master Facilities Plan final report, they said:

Based upon a preliminary, interim report prepared by the Master Facility Planning Committee, the SBI Task Force set $5,000,000 as the savings goal to be had from the consolidation and closure of school facilities. The task force learned that $500,000 could be saved in administrative, support, and operational overhead per closed building.

Okay. So, they “close” Blaine-Sumner, then decide to remodel it and use it as offices. No savings there. They close White School, but then acquire the former Social Security Administration office building on Knoxville and decide to remodel it to the tune of $1.27 million to house their “transition to success academy.” No savings there.

In the meantime, they have two former principals who were made co-deputy superintendents while Ken Hinton got his certification, then made them associate superintendents and gave them raises for that; then when Hinton went on medical leave, they promoted (?) them to… um… co-deputy superintendents… again… and of course gave them another raise for the increased responsibilities.

Despite all of that, the school board passed a balanced budget this year, and expect a surplus of $200,000, according to Guy Cahill in a Sept. 5, 2007 Journal Star report. None of that was attributable to closing schools, of course. Instead, it was made possible by pay freezes and benefit cuts (to employees other than the superintendents, obviously), and by eliminating the district’s purchasing department.

But I thought at least part of the reason for consolidating schools was to save money and pay off the huge deficit the school had a couple years ago. Wasn’t it? So, if the deficit is gone now… does there need to be such a big push toward consolidation?

I’m afraid I’ll never figure them out.