(Todd Taxpayer Bailey) – After spending over $1 million in staff time and
promotion, traveling all over the country in business class, Washoe
County School District has presented it’s strategic plan, EnVision 2015,
to just about everyone. Strategic plans are not easy to develop for an
organization with the size and scope of this organization, too many
responsibilities and mandates with too few resources, and too many
dollars being diverted from the classroom to the point of economic
instability.
If you have a job with an uncertain future, and your mortgage is barely
on time, can you really afford any more taxes for anything? What if the
person promoting this idea is cashing a check every month for over
$10,000 that you are supporting? Perspective is important when
developing a strategic plan.
Generally speaking, when an organization develops a strategic plan, it
includes a budget with specific dollar amounts in each area, yet, Washoe
County School District has released its strategic plan with no budget.
Was any consideration of the real cost of the strategic plan used in its
development, or did the district use what some critics have called a
“Christmas Tree Process”, of simply creating a wish list and leaving the
responsibility of where to find the resources to someone else? When this
question was put to the administration of Washoe County School District
the silence was deafening.
Generally speaking, when an organization develops a strategic plan, it
includes a budget, and the revenue sources to support that budget. Is
Washoe County School District leaving this to the 2011 Nevada
Legislature to take the political responsibility, or will the district
develop specific revenue sources to propose for the increased cost of
the strategic plan to present to the public? No answer.
Will specific economic conditions be considered with regard to the
ability of the Washoe County economy to pay those additional costs, or
does the district exclude those considerations from its process? This is
the most interesting question of all, and has been presented to many at
Washoe County School District over the last 2 years.
Generally speaking, many in the school district and other public
agencies wish to be immune from the economic conditions everyone else is
faced with, insisting on a return to business as usual, including annual
salary increases that are already unsustainable. Hence the need for a
Corporate Income Tax in Nevada, that everyone in education is now
calling for (the district is currently using a whisper campaign for
higher taxes).
One non-school district candidate during the election expressed this
view of the Nevada economy privately saying, “Who owns the private
sector?” YES, it’s true, there are some people who believe that it is
the private sector that is here to serve government, not the other way
around, both elected and employed. The candidate lost because of this
misunderstanding, she didn’t realize all of us live in the same place
with many of the same challenges, regardless of who our employer is.
Some people just get to put the most difficult decisions off longer than
others. They still have to be made.
Because of Washoe County’s size, these debates often make it to kitchen
tables, with one member of the family being a public employee or
business person who benefits directly from taxation, and the other
member in the private sector paying the bills. Generally, it’s a
circular conversation that taxpayers in Nevada know well.
Washoe County School District has accomplished something by simply
finishing a strategic plan that has taken years to get this far. The
district should also be able to answer the 55 questions WCSD-TV asked
after it was released. If Washoe County School District wants the public
to support it’s new strategic plan called EnVision 2015, then it should
be prepared to answer any question about it’s plan, from any taxpayer.
Without that level of transparency and customer service, it’s just
business as usual, with a slicker presentation and a better speaker.
Don’t expect the Nevada Legislature to be so easily fooled, not this time.
You can read the district’s strategic plan, EnVision 2015, and all 55
questions that WCSD-TV submitted to Washoe County School District here:
http://www.WCSDTV.com
(Todd Taxpayer Bailey is a new media publisher and chair of Jobs For
Nevada PAC)