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THE JACKSON HERALD
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2010
Named the best weekly editorial page in the nation for 2007, 2008
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher ~
Mike Buffington, editor • Email: Mike@mainstreetnews.com
our views
The Nicholson
travel machine
T HIS is why many
small towns aren’t
needed. During last
week’s Nicholson City Council
meeting,
member
Chuck
Wheeler
made a
mock
ery of
why
local
govern-
m e n t s
exist.
After
hearing Mayor Ronnie
Maxwell’s 2010 budget propos
al, Wheeler said the city should
add $10,000 for travel because
“we are going places.”
But Wheeler also suggested
cutting the town’s library bud
get proposal to spend $26,000
for new books because he
We are
going
places. ’
-Nicholson
Councilman
Chuck Wheeler
thought that was “a little high.”
Somehow, Mr. Wheeler has
gotten his priorities all screwed
up. The City of Nicholson does
not exist as a private money
tree for Mr. Wheeler to travel
on the taxpayers’ dime. If he
wants to travel, then he should
pay for it himself.
As for the library what evi
dence does Mr. Wheeler have
that the proposed expenditure
for books is “a little high?”
Library book purchases are
not cheap. They should be
based on the usage level of the
library not some artificial gut
instinct of a councilmember
who’d rather use the money
for himself.
This kind of thing goes on all
the time in small towns where
egocentric council members
come to think of the town’s
budget as their own piggy
bank. In fact, it would be inter
esting to see just how much
of Nicholson’s $405,000 bud
get actually goes to help the
citizens of the town and how
much is just internal fluff and
payroll for administrators.
At least the $26,000 is
designed to do something
for taxpayers to benefit; Mr.
Wheeler’s idea of spend
ing another $10,000 for travel
doesn’t do anything to help
anyone but himself.
The Jackson Herald
Founded 1875 • The Official Legal
Organ of Jackson County, Ga.
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher & Editor
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher &
Advertising Manager
News Department
Angela Gary Associate Editor
Jana Adams Mitcham Features Editor
Brandon Reed Sports Editor
Kerri Testement Reporter
Sharon Hogan Reporter
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Developer says Holly Ridge is not ‘defunct’
Dear Editor:
Your past two editions have been addressing defunct
and kaput subdivisions. Last week you listed the
defunct properties on the front page.
This is to inform you that Holly Ridge Subdivision
is not kaput, defunct, unfinished or any of your other
descriptions. We are in full compliance with all county
regulations. We have not asked for nor do we expect
to receive any assistance from the county or anyone
else.
We do, however, expect a correction to be printed
and it would be nice if it was half as big and prominent
as the misinformation that you printed last week.
Misinformation is a polite word for what you said.
Sincerely,
Rainey Davis
Jefferson
(Editor’s Note: According to county government
records, Holly Ridge Subdivision does not have a letter
of credit or bond in place for “maintenance and ero
sion and sedimentation non-compliance. ” There was
no misinformation published, only data provided by
the county on subdivisions it has identified as being
out-of-compliance.)
Perdue kicks the can down the road
GOV. SONNY Perdue was a very talented athlete back
in the day, whose favorite sport was football. He was
good enough to be the starting quarterback on his high
school team and was a walk-on freshman player at the
University of Georgia.
In the decades since he put
on pads and helmet, Perdue
appears to have become more
interested in another game
called “kick the can.”
Throughout his two terms
as the state’s chief execu
tive, Perdue has consistently
declined to take any real lead
ership role towards resolving
Georgia’s most pressing prob
lems. He has preferred instead
to kick the can down the road
so that whoever replaces him
as governor will have to deal
with it.
This aspect of Perdue’s personality was in full display
last week as the General Assembly convened at the
capital for the 2010 regular session.
One of the most important things any governor does
during the opening days of the legislature is deliver a
tom
crawford
“state of the state” address where he lays out his goals,
releases his proposed budget, and suggests specific
actions the General Assembly might take to handle the
problems facing our state.
Not this year, however. Perdue treated his audience
to the most boring, irrelevant speech ever given by any
politician in Georgia’s esteemed history. At least 30 of
the speech’s 32 minutes consisted of a tiresome recita
tion of platitudes you would find in any high school
civics class. He mentioned only two policy propos
als: spending some extra money on mental health
services and basing teacher salaries on classroom
performance.
When would this “pay for performance” plan actu
ally be implemented? According to Perdue, that would
happen in 2014 - a full three years after he leaves office.
Kick the can.
Nowhere in the speech did Perdue talk about such
things as traffic congestion, water supply, or changes in
ethics laws. Those are only three of the most urgent
issues lawmakers will tackle this session.
The day after his speech, Perdue called in reporters
to announce his proposal for addressing transportation
problems. He said he supports the idea of dividing
Georgia into 12 planning regions and allowing the vot
ers in each district to decide if they want to impose a
local sales tax to pay for highway projects.
When would these tax referendums be held? In 2012
- more than a year after Perdue has turned over the
governor’s office to someone else. Kick the can.
On Friday, Perdue finally released his budget propos
al for the coming year. The worst recession since the
1930s has obviously reduced Georgia’s tax revenues
and will force the governor and the legislature to cut
the current budget by more than $1 billion. The budget
for the fiscal year that starts July 1 will also be crimped
for the same reason.
Hidden within those numbers is some very bad
news for public school systems. While Perdue said the
education part of the budget will be reduced by only 3
percent, that still means the formula funding the state
sends to local systems will be cut by $936 million in the
current fiscal year and an additional $527 million in the
fiscal year starting July 1.
That reduction in state funding for local systems has
been the case during the entire Perdue administration,
through good years and bad. When he leaves office
next January, the combined total of those reductions
in state education funding will be somewhere in the
neighborhood of $3 billion.
In other words, Perdue is passing along to the next
governor the job of doing something about a public
education system where student performance still
ranks Georgia among the bottom 10 percent of states.
Kick the can.
Perdue said in his state of the state speech that “the
only legacy I sought was the same one any parent
or grandparent seeks - to hand off our state . . . our
home ... to the next generation in better shape than
we found it.”
I hate to disappoint the governor, but I don’t think that
is going to be his legacy. Eight years of doing almost
nothing has resulted only in the state’s problems piling
up and getting worse.
If there is a defining legacy for the Perdue regime, it
will be this: He saw the future of Georgia and flinched.
Tom Crawford is the editor of The Georgia Report.
He can be reached at tcrawford@capitolimpact.net).
Don’t do more
harm than good
in teacher pay
G OV. Sonny Perdue is pro
posing to turn how the
state com
pensates
school
teachers
on its head.
Rather
than paying
teachers
for tenure
and college
degrees,
Perdue is
propos
ing to pay
teachers
based on
the level of
their students’ achievement.
It’s an intriguing idea, one that
has been discussed and debated for
decades, but has never reached any
kind of legislative action.
It probably won’t this year, either,
given the lack of money in the state.
Still, a discussion about the idea is
worthwhile.
Currently, teachers’ pay is based on
how long they’ve been teaching and
what kind of advanced degrees they
have. But there is no real evidence
that either tenure or degrees make for
more effective teachers. Georgia, like
most states, has created a pay incen
tive plan that is not based on results,
but rather on a criteria that is easy to
measure.
But the outcome is anything but fair.
Bad teachers get paid the same as
good teachers and performance is no
where in the formula.
Is Perdue’s plan any better?
That depends on the details. While
most people would welcome a more
real-world based pay plan in educa
tion, doing that won’t be easy.
For one thing, what kind of testing
criteria would be used and is it fair?
At the lower grade level, the CRCT
would probably be one measure; at
the higher grades, the SAT or state end
of course tests would probably be on
the table.
But how would the state compen
sate for the natural variables of student
achievement from year to year? Some
groups of kids are better than others
academically and that changes each
year. Would the system become a
“lucky draw” game where a “lucky”
teacher would get the better kids in
a grade and therefore, make more
money? What about teachers who get
the less academically gifted kids; how
should they be compensated? That is
especially true of special ed teachers
whose kids will never be at the top of
the academic food chain.
So what is the answer to a more
realistic teacher compensation plan?
Why not do what the private sector
does, let the employer make that deci
sion.
The state could establish some
minimum pay scale for teachers, but
the final pay would be determined by
the local school systems. Beyond the
minimum pay, the state would allocate
a certain level of funds based on the
size of the system, but local school
officials would decide how those dol
lars got split among the teachers and
administrators.
There are a number of ways to do
that. Principals could review teachers
in their own schools and recommend
pay levels for each. Data to support
that could be from standardized test
results, but could also include peer
reviews, parental feedback and the
principal’s own observations.
Those recommendations could
then go before a compensation review
board at the system level so that large
variables from school to school could
be modified. The result would be what
Perdue is looking for; reward the best
teachers more than those who are not
as good.
It’s not likely the Georgia Legislature
will this year upturn teacher pay. But
the idea has a lot of support across the
state and some day, it may get a full
hearing.
But let’s don’t do more harm than
good in that process.
Mike Buffington is editor of The
Jackson Herald. He can be reached at
mike@mainstreetnews. com.
mike
buffington