Lots of press for DISD’s latest announcement — due to some faulty budgeting, the district overspent by $64 million last year, resulting in a big drain on its reserves, an immediate freeze on hiring and a lot of red faces. The Observer and the DMN both weighed in, but the bottom line to the district’s reputation is about the same, as the News so succinctly put it: "Wednesday’s announcement is another blow to a district battered by years of headlines about problems related to district credit card use, car allowances, overtime expenditures and cozy relationships between vendors and district workers."
And now for the really bad news, also in the DMN story: "Trustee Ron Price also laid part of the blame on the board. ‘It is time for the board to hold our employees accountable,’ he said. ‘The board has been asleep at the wheel. The days of passing the bucks are over.’ "
You know what that means, don’t you? A few of the board members who have always preferred to strut their stuff in public are about ready to start mouthing off again, and that type of showboating is one of the reasons DISD truly was a joke a few years ago.
There’s no question that blowing your budget by $64 million is bad news, and it seems like the kind of error that should cost someone his or her job since this is public money. But it’s not the kind of problem that should have people wringing their hands about the district’s educational quality (check out these Observer blog commenters at the end of the post), nor is it the kind of problem that should cause the DMN to open up their treasure chest of past DISD screwups and start trotting those out again, either. People make mistakes, in big businesses and small ones, and all we can do is find out who was responsible, deal with that, and then solve the problem.
In this case, DISD board chair Jack Lowe immediately took partial blame and said he would work on a solution. Supt. Michael Hinojosa didn’t dodge blame, either. The problem appears to have been caused by overhiring teachers in an attempt to improve classroom instruction — no allegations of misappropriation, theft, bad administrative decisions, credit card abuse, fishing trips. The fact that the mistake occurred as the district tried to improve instruction is already a positive, in my opinion. I’m not saying it’s not a serious problem; I’m saying that for once, the screwups at DISD appear to have been incurred with the best of intentions.
