Editorial: West Virginia Can't Waste Funds

Poor use of money keeps the state from solving all of its problems

Charleston Daily Mail, July 12, 2005

Once upon a time, West Virginia 's 55 county school boards operated as many schools as possible and employed as many people as possible.  Why not? The state covered much of the costs -- and nobody there was doing the math. Delegates, senators and governors were vying with each other to promise teachers pensions the state did not fund.

This mismanagement produced the perfect storm in education -- many small schools, poorly maintained and not producing results; many underpaid teachers, and the most underfunded state pension plan in the United States .

The state can't waste money on one problem without undercutting its efforts to solve others.  In 1990, officials set up a School Building Authority to encourage more efficient use of funds. The state has since closed 296 schools and built 97 new ones.

It hasn't always been a welcome process. People want neighborhood schools, lots of school jobs, and low taxes. It doesn't work like that.

Gov. Joe Manchin, the latest chief executive officer to tackle this management problem, is on record as favoring small schools, so the state's new superintendent of schools does as well.

Steve Paine believes county school boards should decide whether to combine schools, and agrees with Manchin that the Internet and videoconferencing can deliver rich curricula to small schools.  But preserving small schools, and adding expensive technology to each preserves high operating costs and jobs at the expense of salary improvements. That won't help the state fund pensions, either.

State officials need to do the math carefully this time. Failing to do that has produced bad results for students, teachers and taxpayers.

Students deserve better schools. Teachers deserve higher pay and more secure pensions. Taxpayers deserve better management of resources.