The Star - News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area

A while back a person told me I’m always fighting for the underdog. I liked Underdog as a kid but was more of a Popeye fan. I was hoping the GCDSD high brass would not feed me more spinach.

However, more cans were opened with leaps of abstraction by the GCDSD Board. Blaming the failure of both levies on the pandemic and reminding us that elections have consequences is unbelievable. These disastrous results are due to their poor decision making over the last few years. This is a self-inflicted wound that they’re responsible for. Now they want to look at $1.50 per $1,000 property valuation with no capital levy? Your voters have been telling you to do that the last two years! You ignored us and got nothing. Our schools belong to the community. Voters are adults who are fully aware of the consequences involved.

Voters expect full transparency, common sense and balance — not dysfunction. Value everyone equally, properly and professionally. Many of these mistakes over a long period of time created the consequences of two failed levies. Stop making excuses and passing the buck. The GCDSD receives significant funding from the federal and state governments every year. These funds kept the school district afloat during this pandemic – Be Thankful! Live within your means and plan budgets you can sustain with your base funds you get each year. Levies are choice funds that give you more options but are not reliable.

Voters will closely observe how you start to downsize this organization that we love and care about. Administration and the district office should be first in line. Student programs and activities should be the last options considered. Hiring an assistant superintendent will now put administrative positions at seven for a B sized school district (Dean of Students positions are admin). This is twice the normal average and unacceptable! The $360,000 with personnel shifts is not accurate. It does not include huge additional costs for benefits involved. Also, three days of a base salary of $130,000 is $78,000 not $90,000 which would be for a base salary of $150,000! Get the pay correct. The majority of these funds should be spent on kids. Small school districts don’t have assistant superintendents. The superintendent does these duties. Due to past poor patterns, our superintendent should not have oversite of the budget or people. His handling of the racism situation is shocking. These types of poor decisions are why the GCDSD has credibility issues and a serious lack of support in our community.

School officials need to be genuinely concerned when long-time supporters are no longer fans. You continue to create this divide. Don’t warn us with consequences for our students as you add more administration! No more leaps of abstraction. Accept responsibility for your poor decisions and stop playing the blame game. As a taxpayer in November, I will vote no if administration and the district office staff are not considerably downsized and the total levy request is over $1.50 per $1,000 property valuation.

Start to realize you have a wonderful opportunity to embrace our challenges and turn them into something a majority of us can stand behind. I have hope in this. Our kids need all of us to be unified!

As Popeye would say, “I am what I am” even if my partner Olive Oil disagrees.