Not long ago, Whitewater’s public school district published seventeen budget assumptions for the 2012-13 budget. Along with those assumptions, the district announced the names of a citizens’ panel to consider and offer budget recommendations.
The assumptions. If you’re wondering whether seventeen assumptions is a typo, and that I meant to write ‘seven,’ wonder no more: the citizens’ panel will work under seventeen assumptions. (The list of assumptions is available online.)
They range from the general to the particular. Even removing the obvious (“greatest priority is to provide the highest quality of education to students based on the resources available”), the large remainder of assumptions is constrictive.
Of budgetary scenarios, there are proposed only two: “The final budget will reflect one of two scenarios: a passed referendum authorizing the Board to exceed the revenue limit as permitted in State Statute 121.91(3) or significant budget reductions.”
This is a false choice, of course. One might have less significant spending reductions and a smaller referendum request, where the choices are not exclusive, but of a different proportion than an all-or-nothing approach. For all the specificity of the assumptions, the district sees only these two options. Perhaps, more accurately, because of the specificity of the assumptions, the district sees only two options.
Citizens Of the citizens advisory group, one finds citizens, of course, but they’re typical citizens only when compared with, say, Belgian nationals. It’s a group mostly of insiders, some of whom are themselves office holders or employees of the district. By the time one finds a private citizen, one is still left with a list of many of the same people who appear on so very many lists. Of the total of eighteen, there’s only one woman. Greater diversity should be expected.
It’s more than odd – but equally predictable – that among the citizens is the incumbent state representative for the 43rd district. In an election year, a controversial freshman legislator is a particularly poor choice. (How controversial, and how poor a choice, I will address at another time.) This is hardly the case of a longstanding and popular incumbent, nearing the end of a storied political career. This district should not be in the business of offering a candidate a bullet point on a campaign flyer.
Stakeholders. ‘Stakeholder’ is used sometimes to describe different groups within a community. It’s a bad term in this context, as it’s a bad concept. The use of ‘stakeholder’ implies a greater or lesser stake, but a community by law operates through a principle of equality.
Whitewater’s school district has residents. That’s all that matters. Residents who are also eligible to vote do not have a greater vote in elections than others, however much they might wish that they did. If some want more, of money or influence, let them find more in private endeavors, where the business concept of a stakeholder (and implicitly of a greater or lesser stake) properly belongs.
Why would one ever want or need to be a stakeholder, if one is already a resident? I well-understand that the idea is to capture some richer, greater meaning. The term doesn’t offer a greater meaning; it gives only a lesser one, distracting from the true and useful focus on residents.