Lawsuits No Way to Legislate

KELO reports that the state may spend as much as $325,000 on fancy out-of-state lawyers to defend itself against the education funding lawsuit brought by 70+ South Dakota school districts. (Someone please fill me in: why can't the AG's office handle this job itself?)

State Senator Sandy Jerstad thinks we may be able to avoid some of those costs:

Jerstad says since the funding formula was put in place over a decade ago, schools continue to lose money. Last year a Senate bill that would have given school districts a 4.3 percent annual increase in funding failed. Jerstad says if that bill would have passed...a funding lawsuit may have never existed.

She says, “I do believe that if the districts knew that they were going to receive the bill that we did last year I think they would cancel their lawsuit.”

Jerstad says because of its price tag, lawmakers are paying attention to the funding lawsuit. She just hopes they're paying enough attention to make education funding a first priority [Kelli Grant, "Will Education Lawsuit Impact 2008 Session?" KELOLand.com, 2007.11.17].

Nothing like a lawsuit get someone's attention. But we should be ashamed that we have gotten to this point in the first place. Is our Legislature so hidebound that it will only lurch grudgingly toward change in the face of a crisis? It shouldn't take a big legal stick to make lawmakers want to pay teachers what they're worth. The carrot of retaining the best professionals and producing top graduates who could serve as the engines of the fastest economic growth in the nation ought to be enough motivation to fix the school funding formula.

Kids are an investment, not a liability. Let's hope the 2008 Legislature can boost education funding, not just because they want to settle out of court, but because paying teachers what they are worth is the right thing to do.

Take That, Sioux Falls -- Huronians Rejoice at State Fair Sales Surge

South Dakota State Fair boosters can surely shout "We're Still the One!" this morning. AP reports this morning that Department of Revenue Figures show the 2007 State Fair posting a 33% increase in tax revenue generated over the 2006 event [AP, "Retail Sales Drop at State Events," KELOLand.com, 2007.11.16]. If Fair Manager Susan Hayward and her crew in Huron keep posting amazing growth like that, they'll have to change the name from State Fair to State Excellent!

The State Fair's success stands out even more amidst otherwise disappointing numbers for the state's biggest summer events. 2007 Sturgis Rally taxes dropped 1% from last year. The Central States Fair taxes dropped 2%.

The big loser: the Sioux Empire Fair in Sioux Falls, whose tax revenues "plunged" 22%. Ouch! Word of the day for previous posters who have lambasted Sioux Falls for trying to kill the State Fair: schadenfreude.

The other big winner: the Brookings Arts Festival, which posted 10% revenue growth. See? Arts can bring big money to town.

Lake Herman Sanitary District and Open Government: Putting My Mouth Where Our Money Is

I write this morning about matters concerning the Lake Herman Sanitary District, of which I am one of three elected trustees. (Actually, "elected" is a slight exaggeration: in the three decades of the district's existence, there has never been a contested seat.) Let's see how well this open government thing really works:

For at least a decade and maybe longer, the Lake Herman Sanitary District has been taxing land that doesn't belong to it.

When I joined the LHSD board in 2006, I inherited the district files, two plastic tubs of relatively organized minutes (mostly handwritten in spiral notebooks), tax rolls and receipts, correspondence, plans, and maps. County Zoning Officer Deb Reinecke asked me to go through those files and see if I could resolve a discrepancy in her records. Evidently, the original official map, filed with the Zoning Office in 1978, includes the area marked in light blue in the map you see here. The tax roll prepared by the County Auditor, however, includes the additional area marked in red. Deb asked me to find the official map so we could verify that the District has the authority to tax all of the areas on the tax roll.

I spent the past year rummaging through the files, reviewing the maps, sorting through the minutes, and checking with lawyers. In all of the district files, I found no official map. There are plenty of district directories with maps that include the blue and red areas, but none that bear an official surveyor's stamp saying legally, formally, "This is the sanitary district." The district minutes and ordinances make no mention I can find of the district's ever officially annexing any land beyond its original borders.

My conclusion: for at least a decade, perhaps as far back as the late 1980s, the Lake Herman Sanitary District has been taxing land outside its official borders.

So how do we solve this problem? To legally tax the territory in red, the district needs to legally annex it. After being taxed for years without being part of the district, it may not make much difference to the affected landowners. However, I can imagine some folks might ask a very simple question: when do we get our money back?

So what do you think, readers? What's the best route? Just add the disputed territory to the map and call it good? Issue refund checks? Your comments are welcome.

We haven't set our next meeting yet. I'll be contacting my fellow board members Lawrence Dirks and Charlie Stoneback, and we'll try to get together at the Madison Public Library meeting room the week after Thanksgiving. The board has been pretty loose in its meeting schedule: I'm trying to get us on a quarterly schedule. We'll put official notice of our next meeting in the Madison Daily Leader, and we'll post our agenda online. Stay tuned....

Madison Central Issues Statement on Bulldog Hackers

Hat tip to MDL:

It's not a blog -- it's a clunky PDF document, and it still smells of euphemism and adminspeak -- but it's a step in the right direction: the Madison Central School District has posted a document on its website titled "Update on Technology Infractions."(The link is available on the superintendent's webpage, where the document bears the title "Tablet Summary Statement."

Even the Madville Times must slumber, so deep reading will have to wait. But some quick math:

1. The school suspended 14 students.
   
2. The document says "less than ten percent (10%) of all students in the high school were found committing infractions" [p. 3... and note the bothersome administrative passive voice]
3. 10% of the student body is roughly 40 kids.
4. 14 is a lot less than 40.
5. The document says all hackers "faced an out of school suspension of two days and loss of tablet."
6. The document says "all consequences were equally dispensed." [more passive voice]

Question: is "less than ten percent" just a really bad estimate, or did some hackers escape punishment? (Yes, that darned Madville Times always has to nitpick... but this is a central question for a lot of students and parents.)

Aberdeen School District: Take This Drug Test or Else... Please?

AP provides Aberdeen's daily dose of doublespeak:

The Aberdeen School Board is considering requiring all Aberdeen Central High School students to sign up for a voluntary drug testing program.

The school district's lawyer is recommending that all students could be required to sign up because in the end, the proposed program is still voluntary [AP, "Changes Pending in Proposed Aberdeen Drug Testing," KELOLand.com, 2007.11.13].

We do love mandatory voluntary drug testing. But hey, didn't we already cover this issue?

Folks in Aberdeen might be thinking they had already covered it, too. But district lawyer Rory King has helped the board pull the switcheroo: when the board presented the plan at a public forum last month, it applied solely to kids in extracurricular activities. Now King has changed his recommendation, and the new policy has gotten first reading without any discussion before a public forum [see Russ Keen, "Drug Testing Plan Altered," Aberdeen American News, 2007.11.13].

(Oh, but shame on me, criticizing an elected school board. How can I be so negative?)

Both Keen and the AP article does explain that the Aberdeen Central students would all be required to put their names on the list for the pee-in-the-cup lottery. The voluntary part comes in that if a student's name is drawn the parents (or the student herself, if she's 18 or over) can refuse the test.

Now we all know how that works. Imagine the school draws your name. Your parents (or you, dear non-minors) say, "No way! Keep your hands off my kid's pee." Thanks to the school's Big-Brotherism, the rumor mill starts spinning: "Ooo, did you hear so-and-so refused the drug test? I wonder what she's hiding...." It's not right, but that's how the local rumor mill works.

The Aberdeen school district should stay out of this mess. If parents want their kids tested for drugs, they can haul 'em down to the clinic right now. School-mandated drug-testing (or mandatory sign-up for voluntary drug-testing, or whatever Orwellian foolishness the Aberdeen school district is trying to foist upon its citizens) will probably do more harm to innocent kids by invading privacy and generating rumors.

KJAM Kudos: Best Headline of the Day!

"Midwest Gov's Assoc. Looks to Get Local Economies Out of Dinosaur Age"
[KJAM, 2007.11.15]

Indeed, the governors are getting together to talk about fighting climate change and promoting renewable fuels. Fascinating! Maybe Governor Rounds has been waiting for this conference finally announce his opposition to TransCanada's push to steal South Dakota land just to pump fossil fuels across the state.

And in Spelling News...

Yeah, too busy correcting the media's spelling errors. ;-)

Republicans Targeting Teachers All Right...

...for more slave labor!

Sorry -- just a little hyperbole to get your blood pumping this morning.

But seriously -- Mr. Epp reports that the SD GOP is trying to poach members from the Sioux Falls Education Association. Ballsy, indeed, but oh, Ann, say it ain't so: say you didn't get out of coaching debate just hang out with those guys.

Oh well. Guess I'd better head over to the country club, see how many folks I can get on board to help the Dems retake the State Senate next year....

Go Ahead, Eat That Pheasant... and Thanks for the Free Publicity

"Freezing their butts off for Ron Paul. And for no point," sniffs King Pat leaving the country club. But while SDWC groans over last night's gorging on pheasant, the gentleman he was referring to, a guy holding a big campaign sign in a frigid thirty-mile-an-hour wind, is probably cheerily warming his hands in the hot air of the blogosphere.

"No point"? Heck, he got his guy's name and picture at the top of the South Dakota's most read blog. As a supporter of another single-digit (but climbing!) presidential candidate, I can imagine the Ron Paul folks thinking, "That's the key: keep provoking the powers that be. Get 'em to mention us. Get the name out there in the discourse. The more they take time to notice us, the more important we become."

Don't get me wrong: this blog has no love for Paul supporter Stegmeier or any other fringe elements who just want to cause Constitutional train wrecks. But even if they won't win my vote, the Madville Times feels some love for all underdogs. For candidates not backed by big money and big media, publicity is the point.

And imagine it: Kucinich vs. Paul in 2008. Now that would be an interesting election!

Fired City Manager Back on His Feet in Brookings

You can't keep a good man down: Jeffrey Weldon, fired just last month as Yankton city manager, has a new job... as Brookings city manager. Weldon beat out 51 other applicants for the $103K/year job. He starts next month and moves his family from Yankton to Brookings in January.

I know what it's like to get fired from a public position. It's not fun. It certainly doesn't look good on the résumé. It can make a guy question whether he even wants to stay in the profession he enjoys. It's good to see that Weldon didn't let the firing and the bad feelings get him down. The powers-that-be (and may not be for long, depending on the recall election) may have knocked him off his horse, but he got right back on another one.

When you get fired, you can sit around being depressed or angry, or you can look for another good opportunity. Life goes on. For Jeff Weldon, it will go on in Brookings. The Brookings City Commission has recongized his qualifications. Now he can just hunker down behind a new desk, get to work, and let his record and accomplishments speak for themselves. Good luck, Mr. Weldon!

(And watch out for that Powers character -- he'll probably say you're part of the nanny state. Don't sweat it: it's nothing personal, just ideology.)

Yankton City Government Paralyzed

The Yankton City Commission offers another puzzler: last night, the commission let die without a motion a proposed investigation of possible "criminal micro-management of city employees" [Nathan Johnson, "City Investigation a No-Go," Yankton Press and Dakotan, 2007.11.14]. Possible misdeeds in that area have motivated a recall election of Yankton Mayor Curt Bernard and Commissioner Dan Rupiper.

The embattled mayor himself had called for an investigation, so why did the commission back away from that idea? It seemed like a good idea...

However, after returning from an executive session with City Attorney Jim Goetz, Mayor Curt Bernard explained that a law went into effect earlier this year making it illegal to spend public funds if they could influence the outcome of an election.

"I think it kind of precludes any discussion of this investigator work," Bernard said. "But, in fairness, I think there is some gray area in this law, so if the commission wants to proceed with that, there is a lot of gray area here." [Johnson]

Attorney Goetz and Mayor Bernard appear to be referring to HB1048, this year's campaign finance reform law, specifically SDCL 10-27-20, "Expenditure of public funds to influence election outcome prohibited."

Oh my. Goetz's and Bernard's explanation sounds pretty thin. The city wasn't talking about buying posters or airtime to combat the recall effort. They were talking about an investigation of possible wrongdoing by elected officials who also just happen to be on an upcoming ballot.

But if the mayor's interpretation of the public expenditure clause is correct, he may have just given us a recipe for complete governmental paralysis during election season. If hiring a special investigator might influence an election, couldn't hiring a consultant to come up with a plan for a new city pool (which the Yankton City Commission did last night) influence voters as well? What about the 3% salary adjustment for city workers they approved last night? What about the vote to re-open the outdoor skating rink?

If I'm a Yankton city worker this morning, I'm thinking, "A 3% raise and outdoor skating this year? Yahoo! Our commission is great! I'm not recalling those guys." My vote's just been influenced! By the expenditure of public funds! Call Chris Nelson! (AG Long is still recuperating -- don't bother him!)

Oh well. Mayor Bernard appears to have found an easy way to avoid difficult issues. Elected officials around the state will be pleased to have this clever bit of lawyering at their disposal. Looks like the voters of Yankton will just have to handle things themselves.

BuLldOG Blog: A Call for Transparency

also online at KELOLand.com!

The comment lines (and even the good old land line!) have been heating up over Monday's school board meeting and the Bulldog hacker incident.

There are all sorts of rumors going around:

1. kids used sophisticated hacking software
2. the administration profiled kids and stopped dishing out suspensions when they realized it wasn't just the usual troublemakers with the password on their computers
3. the school didn't want the bad PR of suspending half the student body (as if they haven't gotten enough bad press already)
   
4. two creative kids confessed to having the forbidden password last Tuesday, just in time to get a two-day suspension that allowed them to take a five-day weekend hunting trip

...and rumors are mostly useless. What we need is some open discussion. We need dialogue. We need...

...The Bulldog Blog. Every administrator, teacher, and student in Madison High School has a computer. (Every board member probably does too -- how else would they get the Madville Times?) Imagine if there were one site where everyone in the school could engage the entire community in an open, frank discussion of everything going on in the school.

Example 1: The kids have a beef with the apparently selective punishments handed out. The kids who got suspended could post their names. The kids who had the password (and it sounds like half the school, at least) but didn't get suspended could post their names. Then we could look at the lists and have a clearer picture of the scenario the school faced.

Example 2: Principal Knowlton has been getting a fair number of questions about her decisions in issuing the suspensions. A number of those questions she can't answer -- FERPA, code of ethics, etc. But a number of questions she could answer. She could take ten minutes to compose a reasonable blog post, outlining in general what information she had, what policies she followed, and what changes, if any, she thinks the policy might require for future incidents.

Example 3: MHS IT guru Todd Beutler is surely getting questions about just what steps the school is taking to secure the network. He's a busy guy, and he surely doesn't want to spill details that would help future hackers. But he could take just a minute to take the issue logs and other reports he already does, cut and paste a few relevant details into a blog, and presto! openness and transparency in IT.

Example 4: the board members didn't have a lot of information at Monday's meeting -- it was their first meeting since the hacker plague broke. Monday's executive session gave that information. They can't say names, but they could certainly talk about the general policy issues they discussed behind closed doors. Let the board members go to their computers and offer us their unvarnished opinions of what they learned and what they think ought to be done. Brookings City Councilman Tim Reed blogs, and it's great!

A couple students could set up a Bulldog blog in ten minutes. Todd Beutler doesn't have to do a thing (see, Todd? I'm trying to save you work!). Use Blogger or Wordpress or whichever service the K-12 server won't block. Set up four separate but linked blogs: Bulldog Students, Bulldog Teachers, Bulldog Admin, and Bulldog Board.

Now someone will say (actually, my lovely wife just said) "But you know what they'll say: 'We don't have time.'" Au contraire! Suppose right now 5-10 parents call the school with the same question about the hacker suspensions. Mrs. Knowlton or Mr. Postma has to give the same explanation 5-10 times. If they blog, the explanation is online, and at least a couple of those parents will read it and go, "Oh, that answers my question." Time saved!

Blogs can't answer every question. They can, however, create an air of openness, immediacy, and transparency, principles that every public and democratic institution, especially a public school, has a keen interest in fostering. Students blogging become empowered; teachers and administrators blogging become more connected. Board members blogging can organize and explain their positions outside of the pressure of a public meeting and without media filters to introduce errors.

Businesses are realizing the power of in-house blogs to strengthen community among their employees and with their customers. Madison High School should put that same power to work with The Bulldog Blog.