In another attempt at over-sensationalizing the news (and completely blowing things out of proportion), WRAL’s story on the first day of traditional calendar classes in Wake County reads: “Students return to cash-strapped schools.”
We’ve all heard about the budget cuts, but “cash strapped” is just not accurate and completely off-base.
The WCPSS 2009-2010 budget (p. 15) is $1.7 billion, of which $1.24 billion is daily operations, the rest is capital costs.
The budget cuts resulted in a net loss to the county of $35 million — less than 3% loss of the daily operations budget.
While that may can be called a cut or reduction or whatever term you want to call it, cash strapped is certainly not it. Wake County is still going to be spending in excess of $1.2 billion on public eduction this year.
Only in WRAL’s hyper-sensationalized world can that be considered “cash strapped.”
For even better context, I’d be curious to see the operating budget this year compared to five years ago. I’d be willing to bet the growth far exceeds student growth plus inflation.
One main reason they may be “cash-strapped” is because they are trying to sustain so many administrators and non-instructional personnel.