County shows ‘em who’s boss now

“Well,” the collective voice of a Worcester County Commissioner majority seemed to say this week, “I guess we showed them who’s boss.”

That sums up what the commissioners said in a 4-2 vote to reject the board of education’s proposed budget and instead give county schools the minimum amount of funding the law allows.

That would be what the school system spent last year, all because the school board would not or could not satisfy the commissioners’ desire to see the budget dissected into an arrangement that would allow them to pick it apart bone by bone like a piece of fish.

In limiting school spending to what is known as “Maintenance of Effort” — state law forbids counties from budgeting less on education than they did the year before — the commissioners, led by Ocean Pines’ representative Chip Bertino, declared this was not a vote against education per se.

That is true in one respect: it was a vote against the board of education, whose state-granted autonomy the commissioners clearly resent. Most of that resentment arises from the fact that school funding constitutes roughly 45 percent of the county’s total spending, and the commissioners, who have cast themselves as warriors of fiscal conservatism, can’t touch it.

Even so, the commissioners have no business seeking fishbone-level authority over school spending because, as they would likely say to a taxpayer who questioned their budget details, it’s complicated; you wouldn’t understand it.

Especially unfortunate, however, is the commissioners’ attempt to justify this political power play by smearing school officials and board members as fiscally irresponsible.

That is a blatant attempt to turn the public against the board — and the school system itself — despite the commissioners’ assertion that this was not a vote against education.

Maybe and maybe not, but it is obvious that the commissioner majority has embraced the increasingly popular political notion that sometimes it’s more advantageous to make a point than it is to make sense. Regardless of who suffers.

Ocean City Today

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