One of the emotional hooks for Proposition 30 -- Jerry Brown's proposal to increase income and sales taxes in California -- is that defeat of the measure will lead to mandatory cuts to education spending in California. The problem with using that prospect to generate sympathy, however, is that there is plenty of fat in the Golden State's education spending, as Heather MacDonald showed in her profile of the University of California system's out-of-control bureaucracy for City Journal last month. And a new story out of San Francisco demonstrates just how deeply the rot has set in.
This is how the San Francisco Chronicle reports forthcoming spending cuts at City College of San Francisco:
Over the objections of labor leaders, trustees of the nearly bankrupt City College of San Francisco were expected to dismantle a long-standing system of faculty leadership on Thursday night to streamline governance and save $2 million.
The move would send dozens of department chairs back to the classroom from the administrative positions they have held for years, earning extra pay for that work while being released from teaching. Deans would largely take their place, as is customary at other colleges.
As this excerpt makes clear, that 'status quo' was more pay for less work. And the trustees are to be praised for recognizing that this system -- ludicrous even in the best of times -- is indefensible with the state in such dire fiscal straits.Trustee Steve Ngo has called the system a "peculiar and dysfunctional management regime that inevitably existed for its own sake, answered to no one, and (served to) attack anyone who wanted to change the status quo."
That praise, however, doesn't come without qualifications. Based on the Chronicle's reporting, it looks like the trustees still have a thing or two to learn about getting the maximum bang for the taxpayers' buck:
And this is what 'reform' looks like. There's a reason that polling shows California voters growing increasingly skeptical of the argument that insufficient tax revenue is at the root of the state's problems.The trustees approved the hiring of a "special trustee," giving veto power on all accreditation-related decisions to Bob Agrella, retired head of the Sonoma County Junior College District. In closed session, the trustees gave Agrella an eight-month contract at $1,000 per work day, roughly $160,000, and a taxpayer-funded car.
