Common Sense and Local Control

By Willard A. Hughes

We must wrest control of our district's finances -- both income and expense -- from Sacramento and Washington. Then we must be careful and diligent stewards of the taxpayer's money and quit spending it on things we don't need.

No family who is unable to afford the basic expenses of life -- food, clothing, the light bill -- goes out and buys a second house. But that is exactly what our district is doing: making drastic cuts to our operating expenses while embarking on an ambitious program of new-school construction during a period of declining enrollment. This defies logic. The Board of Education must budget our district's limited resources in a sensible, responsible, and fair manner. It must defend its right as the district's governing body to determine where its money comes from, how much it receives, and how we spend it.

We must restore common sense to our district's operations and leadership. To the extent that current laws and regulations prevent us from using common sense, we need to work to change those laws and regulations. There are too many fingers in the public-education pot, and I believe local school boards need greater control of both their expenses and their revenues. I will work with my elected colleagues in Sacramento and in Washington to make those changes happen.