(Michael Chamberlain/Nevada Business Coalition) – Here we thought that government budgets had been cut to the bone and there was nothing left. At least that’s what the people who work for government have been saying. Their actions, however, tell a very different story.
North Las Vegas, a city that is essentially broke and fighting rumors of a state takeover, found the cash to hire a new city manager for $180,000 per year plus benefits. Not only was NLV’s new city manager fired as Mesquite’s city manager just a few short months ago, NLV didn’t see fit to advertise the job or to interview anyone else.
If you work for government, you can get fired from one job and get a $50,000 raise to take the same job somewhere else. What a country!!!
At least the City of North Las Vegas included a provision preventing him from collecting severance pay if he’s fired for cause. Too bad for him that in that case he’s merely a victim of bad timing. Just because one person gets drunk and wrecks her car during working hours and collects a six-figure payout she ruined it for everybody.
On the heels of that we find out the Clark County School District is paying $74,700 for multicultural training.
Zaner-Bloser, an educational materials publisher, will provide 18 days of professional development and materials between now and May 15, 2012 — costing the district $74,700. The consultant will work with about 350 teachers, training them on how to teach effectively in increasingly diverse classrooms.
[…]
In previous years, the diversity department’s five employees conducted district-wide workshops and conferences to promote cultural awareness among teachers. Last year, the department held 75 training sessions and three major conferences.
The workshops, however, only dealt with raising cultural awareness, not so much teaching teachers on how to become more “culturally responsive instructors,” Peay said. Zaner-Bloser will help teachers incorporate multiculturalism into their curriculum, she said.
The consultant will conduct bimonthly meetings and site visits with “equity and diversity school site liaisons,” a teacher chosen by the principal at each school. The goal is to help teachers teach a subject like writing using books that highlight different cultures, backgrounds and physical and mental abilities.
Zaner-Bloser will provide classroom sets of multicultural literature — books such as “I Speak English for my Mom” — at no cost to the district. As anyone who’s ever managed people knows, if people are struggling to do their jobs properly, the last thing you do is heap more work on them.
The School District has not been very effective in teaching kids to read and write, yet now teachers are going to be expected to “incorporate multiculturalism into their curriculum” in reading instruction and teach writing “using books that highlight different cultures, backgrounds and physical and mental abilities.”
How about just teaching them to read and write and do math?
As if that weren’t enough, we find the Southern Nevada Water Authority has been paying an attorney $500 per hour to work on bond matters, nearly triple the hourly rate when the contract was first signed with the same attorney 17 years ago.
Despite groaning about never having enough money, governments always seem to have enough to hire high-paid administrators and indulge in frivolous left-wing hokum. Obviously, government is not small enough.
(Michael Chamberlain is Executive Director of Nevada Business Coalition.)
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