The one official candidate for mayor, Michael Nutter, has written to Paul Vallas to urge for more information and more public discussion of proposed school budget cuts.
The letter calls for a stringent review of the district's books, as Mayor Street recently called for. But there are a couple of noteable new ideas in Nutter's letter:
Nutter suggested PICA audit the district books, to serve as an "independent financial oversight entity"
He asked for an accounting of what the proposed budget cuts would do to each school
He asked for "week of public hearings in City Council chambers" so parents and other stakeholders can understand the cuts.
The letter's mentioned in Mensah M. Dean's coverage of the first meeting of Street's Philadelphia Educational Advisory Task force -- aka the Mayor's wedge to get back into the school district.
Comments (4)
Isn't the city controller (Butkovitz) supposed to already audit the school district?
Having city council spend a week on this, when the state controls the system, seems like a waste of time. Not that the city council aren't professionals on wasting time.
Posted by James | November 1, 2006 4:39 PM
Yes, you are right -- the controller is, and seems to be taking the district to task -- but Butkovitz has said that he has not gotten access to all the district records he has sought. His latest report is here.
Posted by Wendy | November 1, 2006 9:13 PM
Is Nutter joking about Vallas and the district? Art, music and librarians were cut from many Philly schools several years ago. Does he really think this is something new?
Why the hell aren't the local politicians taking Vallas to task for cutting teachers from school? The lie that about declining student populations is just an excuse. The opposite has happened with the District failing to send sufficient teachers to schools where the class size is in violation of the contract they agreed on. In some cases they are actually removing teachers in their attempt preserve this shell game of missing school funds.
Out of 501 school district in the state of PA there is only one that doesn't have an outside controller to watch the books, Philly. What does Nutter expect from Vallas who gave out 10 million in no bid contracts to Arthur Anderson when he was out in Chicago?
How come teachers are never mentioned in the calls for public meetings on the school budget? They know better than anybody in the district what has and hasn't happen. Nutter has to do better than this if he thinks he stands a chance as mayor. Right now he sounds like just anothe rube that's been taken.
Posted by Intheknow | November 2, 2006 10:37 PM
Sounds like Nutter's expecting something from PICA, not Vallas. Or did you write all that stuff based only on the little blurb on the main TheNextMayor page?
Posted by Dave | November 2, 2006 11:18 PM