The Madison County Board of Supervisors voted in favor of a resolution asking Madison County Superintendent Mike Kent to find a way to keep East Flora Middle School open following a special meeting on the subject on Friday January 28.
"The school is inefficient because of its economy of scale," Kent said, adding that the cost to educate a student there is $14,000 compared to $7,700 in the rest of the district.
In a Madison County Herald report today, District 4 Supervisor Karl Banks suggested the district redraw lines to force kids from Madison Middle School--rated a top rated Star School--into the Flora District as a way of increasing attendance. The East Flora Middle School is currently rated as "academic watch". Banks suggested that, despite the fact that the Madison County taxpayers are spending almost double the average cost per student at East Flora, that the school is being "penalized." But, he obviously had no problem "penalizing" students from Madison Middle School.
"If you changed the attendance zone, student cost wouldn't be the issue. Fourteen thousand dollars is not the issue," said Banks, who represents the Flora area. "If you're going to penalize (East Flora Middle) because of the costs, you can solve that with the stroke of a pen - bring in more children."
"Maybe if the lines were drawn better, we could have two Star Schools," Banks said.
But, will bringing kids in whose parents care more about their kids education, into a school that's parental involvement is among the lowest in the district help students, or hinder overall achievment? And is that an experiment the School District wants to conduct on it children? Furthermore, how many of the Madison Middle School students who would be drawn into the Flora District will withdraw from public schools and enter the private school system?
My guess is: most of them, leaving the school district and East Flora Middle School with the same problems--lower achievement, a majority of parents who care more about their own convenience than they do about their kids education, and an extremely ineffecient school.
Supervisor Paul Griffin's suggestion was predictable: raise taxes.
Supervisor Paul Griffin said the school district could consider doing what the county did a few years ago to provide for needed funds - increase the millage rate.
"If the Board of Education wants to provide good schools and keep them going, they may have to bite the bullet and raise taxes," Griffin said.
The attraction to economic development is a wonderful argument on it's face. Having a school in town is a much bigger draw to industry looking to relocate. But, like the redistricting argument, it doesn't hold water, either. Once industry recognizes the school is in serious trouble, it may as well not exist.
If parents of students don't care about the school, why should the Madison County taxpayer.
District 5 Supervisor Paul Griffin was quoted in a weekend story as saying he would be willing to consider a bond issue for Madison County if he could get some emergency sirens in his rural district.
Now, only residents of Ridgeland, Madison, Canton and Flora are within earshot of emergency weather warning systems run by those municipalities. But, Griffin said he wants all other county residents to hear similar alarms sound when tornadoes or dangerous storms approach.
"It's for public safety. I want to get citizens as much notice as possible," said Griffin, who represents the rural northern end of the county. "Having sirens in the county has always been a thought of mine."
Let me say that I am not against properly managing emergencies. I am not against the people in Supervisor Griffin's district. I don't want to see their property destroyed by bad weather or a tornado. But, the idea that Madison County would even consider a bond issue right now is madness.
We have roads that have been engineered and re-engineered when the money isn't even there for construction. How much of these engineering fees that Mr. Griffin voted to approve could have gone to provide the safety he wants for his constituents?
Maybe Griffin wasn't looking that far ahead when he cast those votes. Maybe he doesn't care about budgets and taxes at all. After all, we know where the majority of the tax money comes from, and it ain't District 5!
But, let's just pretend that Griffin, Board President Tim Johnson, and Supervisor Karl Banks hadn't put the the taxpayers on the line 50 million dollars five years ago. Are the sirens a good investment?
District 5 is a very rural district. If, as the article says, to install a siren costs $20,000, it shouldn't cost over $40,000 to put one in Sharon and one in Camden. That should do it. Any more would be a waste and the money needed to cover those two communities can be found by cleaning up waste in other parts of the county budget. Attempts to cover the countryside with sirens to protect a few homes that, if they are like mine in Flora, already know the storm is coming before the sirens go off anyway, is a waste of resources.
Butch Hammack, the county's emergency management director, seemed to agree.
"There's always a lot of debate (about the effectiveness of sirens), but I'm putting together this study for the supervisors review," he said.
"It's not feasible to spend $20,000 for five houses and thousands of cattle," Hammack said.
Even those of us with a little history of being on the wrong side of the political witch hunters in Madison County—one day, I’ll write that story and explain—have to look at the past few months of shenanigans with mouths agape in amazement. There is no definitive starting point, and apparently no ending point, to the political gamesmanship that occurs here in the “Land Between Two Rivers”. It goes back decades. But, if one were to try to define a timeline of events that have us where we are today, the ramp-up to our most recent toxic political climate can be traced back to February 2006 when Board President Tim Johnson and Supervisor’s Karl Banks and Paul Griffin formed a voting bloc and passed a $50 million bond debt program without knowing how the county would pay it back. That lack of budget sense was followed by a vote again in September 2008 to raise taxes to the tune of 3.3 mils to cover the debt that was incurred from it.
Before the 2008 vote, there was an attempt to stifle debate altogether by closing the public hearing, followed by a surprisingly inept attempt to double the increase to 6.33 mils. Due to public outcry and the threat of legal challenges, it was quickly reduced back to the original 3.33 mils. But a new way of doing business had been put into play:
Johnson, who said he worked with an “ad hoc” committee comprised of County Engineer Rudy Warnock and road department officials to develop the plan, said he intentionally did not solicit input from either Jones or Taggart. Johnson, who said he did not need public input to determine the county’s greatest transportation needs, said he did discuss the plan and how best to finance the individual road projects chosen as priorities with District 4 Supervisor Karl Banks and District 5 Supervisor Paul Griffin.
“They were a part of it, yes,” Johnson said.
Warnock, who formally drafted the presentation document outlining almost $100 million in road construction and repair projects, was approved as part of the road plan’s 3 to 2 adoption to serve as the lead engineer for the entire road plan project – a responsibility that could potentially earn his engineering firm up to 20 percent of the road projects’ total costs.
“I will be the lead engineer for the road work,” Warnock said.
A subsequent report by an independent engineering consultant, Richard McAfee, funded by concerned citizens in the City of Madison found several red flags in Warnock’s cozy relationship with Madison County. The allegations became public in March of 2010, and calls for a visit from State Auditor Stacey Pickering ensued. Board President Johnson and Warnock looked on that as the seminal shot fired. With the help of the voting bloc that now controlled the Board of Supervisors, they began implementing a scorched earth retaliation policy, and a game of “hide-and-go-seek” of the county’s invoice approval process.
The tactic employed by Johnson and company is to deny everything, admit to nothing, and to lay waste to everything through counter charges. There is a void left from the board’s refusal to come clean, and citizens are left guessing at why this is all happening. The vacuum created by a Board of Supervisor's unwilling to explain themselves is filled by any number of rumors.
There is Supervisor Banks land holdings and the question of whether he has personally profited from his votes on the board. There have been concerns of the possible uber-politicization of the upcoming redistricting process to allow the control of the power levers to remain in Johnson’s hands as, are you sitting down . . . County Administrator. That's right folks, rumor is he has his sight set on a job to run the whole county; Boss Hogg in a sequened jumpsuit.
As puzzled citizens scratch their heads, old rumors of the county engineer’s epic shindigs have again been brought to the fore, as well. Warnock’s soiree’s, the rumor goes, supposedly helped him gain enough dirt on public officials that he could get away with the billing deceptions and the closed door road planning meetings. No one would dare cross him lest he go public.
Is this all true? I’m not sure. There is almost always a hint of truth in the most deceptive of lies. That’s what makes them believable. But one thing is for certain; the fact that it is all being talked about as the back story to the ongoing head-butting between factions is not financially or civically healthy for any of us.
This is what we Madison Countians have been reduced to by the mismanagement of a few who want all the power all the time. It didn't just start this year, and it won’t be fixed overnight. Most voters probably now realize it will require some serious purging come Election Day before that fix is possible.
The question becomes, “Can Madison County keep from imploding until then?”
