Put an end to schools' blame game

In the immortal words of George W. Bush, "It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."

And most budget numbers have a story to tell.

This week, as Coeur d'Alene School District officials wrestled with the age-old dilemma of having more needs for money than money itself, two major stories emerged. One came from Trustee Dave Eubanks, who squarely pinned a share of the district's financial strain on former Chief Operating Officer Wendell Wardell. Eubanks is not alone in the district's hierarchy in blaming a guy who left his job some eight months ago in a personnel dispute that was largely fought outside the public arena.

The other side of the story came from Wardell, who responded with an opinion piece intended to fill in vital blanks and rebut several conclusions reached by Eubanks and others. For example, Wardell asserted that Eubanks' recommendation to sell the district's administrative offices and apply that money to the contingency fund would violate accounting principles; in fact, he says, doing so could threaten the district's strong bond rating and open the door to legal action against the district for applying capital funds to a non-capital expense.

Some good has come from the public airing of the district's financial laundry. Patrons might now have a little better idea how truly complex and challenging it is managing a multi-million dollar budget with state and federal strings attached, local funding mechanisms like bonds and levies for capital expenditures and maintenance and operations, and of course, feeding the needs of more than 10,000 children and hundreds of employees from a seemingly limitless line of accounting buckets. A little public enlightenment can go a long way toward better overall management and results.

But it is our hope that the blame game stops now. Exactly who bears how much responsibility for perceived fiscal shortcomings likely will never be known, and at this point, we're not even sure it matters. Wardell is gone, living the good life in North Carolina. Key members of previous school boards also are gone, perhaps making them tempting targets as well.

The public will be best served if it is accurately and thoroughly apprised of the district's current financial condition and is involved in the process of determining how best the district's limited resources should be dedicated. The time for blame is done. The time for solutions has arrived.