One benefit of the debate over closing government schools is that it has destroyed one ridiculous Big Lie of the left: losing students is a big cost to taxpayers.
This has been a staple trope of the teacher union bosses for years.
It is obvious that adding students to a school system increases costs. But libs have consistently adhered to the irrational claim that closing schools also increases costs.
Resorting to reductio ad absurdum carries that argument to this conclusion: If all students left the school system, it would continue to spend billions of dollars paying teachers to teach non-existent students.
Duval County’s school superintendent now has acknowledged that closing schools when students leave does, in fact, save money. The School Board will vote tonight on whether to close another school.
It is contentious because people don’t like to lose a school in their community.
But students are leaving government schools because, finally, they have a choice. The monopoly is broken.
As Eye on Jacksonville reported recently, excess capacity remains even after closing 10 schools.
The school administration is trying to “right size” the schools to eliminate patches of excess capacity, which is inefficient and costly.
In the process, another lie has been exposed. The left has talked about a $100 million debt for years. The school system has debt, of course, but what they were talking about is nothing but a reduced fund balance.
The fund balance, also known as cash carryover, simply is what remains if you spend less than what was budgeted during the fiscal year. All well-run systems have a fund balance. It serves as a reserve fund in case something goes terribly wrong. School districts can’t run to the bank and borrow money when they overspend.
In any case, the $100 million is what they thought they needed to have a healthy fund balance. A fund balance of about 5 to 10 percent of the budget probably is healthy. If it gets down to 2 percent of the budget, the state takes action.
So, it isn’t a “debt.” Also, by “adjusting”: their accounting methods they have determined that it is less than $100 million.
All they need to do is tax more or spend less. If you have too many schools, spending less by closing schools makes a lot more sense.
