Just about the time our community begins to have some hope and feel good about what is beginning to happen in our Hamilton County Public Schools then the school board makes a lame brain immature decision. Thursday night at its December meeting the board voted 6 to 2 (with Joe Smith and Rhonda Thurman being the only ones with any mature common sense) to spend nearly a half million dollars to bring in MGT Consulting Group to tell us what we already know.
So Mr.
and Ms. Taxpayer here is what is about to happen. MGT Consultants will come in and tell the School Board what repairs need to be done, (information we already know backed by a $200 million deferred maintenance list developed almost two years ago) then they will tell us where our county population growth is and is going to be over the next 10 years (information we already know as a result of extensive studies of the Hamilton County Planning Commission). MGT will present this information in a beautiful power point and binder folder and you can bet the farm the price tag to address the issues they will discover will be staggering. Even Mr. Clark himself stated, "I’ve never met a school district that had a big enough checkbook to address everything we find.” Then Mr. Joe Clark, business services consultant with MGT, will fly back home to his Florida-based office with Hamilton County's half million dollars and his work will set on the desk of Dr. Johnson (superintendent) and Justin Witt (facilities director) and gather dust. Why? There is no money to pay for all the work that MGT is about to tell us we need that we already know we need.
But here is a novel idea, it came out of the mouth of newly elected school board member young Tucker McClendon last night when he said, “I think if we have a funding body that doesn’t want to give us more funding for this then shame on them.” A lesson for you, young school board member. It might be a good idea to not shame the hand that feeds you, and remember that the funding body that you are shaming just recently gave you $100 million in new capital.
Come on School Board don’t mess up some great things that you are currently doing in our public schools by making such immature, costly, useless decisions as you did Thursday night. Thank you Joe Smith and Rhonda Thurman for your wisdom and maturity. And to young Mr. McClendon, shame on you for shaming our county commissioners.
Charles Hunt
Soddy Daisy