Times are so tight ...

How tight are they?

Florida school district leaders are down to counting the pennies as they strive to shave millions from their budgets.

In Lee County, for instance, School Board members had a lively discussion over whether to spend $16,000 more on document shredding. "We have so much public space, why don’t we put them in boxes and store them there and save the taxpayers some money," member Bob Chilmonik said, according to a  Naples Daily News report.

And over in Okaloosa, some high schools are starting to charge students $5 for lockers and doubling the price of parking tags just to save a buck. "Everything's just going up - electricity, water, gas," Fort Walton Beach High principal Charlene Couvillon told the Northwest Florida Daily News. "We're having to draw in tight."

Comments

[What????]

Get those after school day care kids to tear up (shred) some documents - $16,000,000 - are you kidding me?

[Look at the Zeros]

I believe the amount is $16,000 (sixteen thousand) NOT $16,000,000 (sixteen million).
And I can already hear the parents of "those after school day care kids" screaming because their children are being put "to work". Why not bring back incinerators and burn up all the paper......

Thanks for clarifying - did think that was a bit over the top! Although $16,000.00 is still a chunk of change in this bleak economy for tearing up paper!

The issue is that the records are protected by various privacy laws. Even the school board member who says just store them is neglecting to consider the security costs and liability concerns should any of these records be accidently released or intentionally stolen. The records are best protected by being digitized with the paper records destroyed. $16K is a small amount of money to protect this valuable personal (and protected by law) information.

[Thanks!]

Makes lots of sense when put in those terms. Thanks for the input!

Instead of cutting funding for public education, why couldn't the legislature save money by reducing the number of its own members. The constitution does not require 40 senators and 120 representatives. Millions could be saved by reducing the number of Senators and Representatives to the Constitutional minimums. Staff would be saved. Travel would be saved. Fewer members should mean fewer stupid laws that cost tons of money to implement. It sounds much better than losing education programs.

If they won't share in the cuts, we should make sure than more than just a few of them lose their jobs during the elections.