The way this country/state is set-up, collapse is inevitable. The entire thing is an invalid construct. How the hell can we justify paying the IPS Superintendent $240K/year? The Indiana governor makes under $100K/year. This doesn't make any sense. How do you get paid less to run more in this country?

Executive public pay is bleeding us dry. From higher ed, to K-12, to local municipalities. These people running these entities are stuck in a blissninnie wonderland. Unless we cut public executive pay by at least 10-20% where wages exceed $80K/year, I don't see this country making it. Even if we do cut spending, groups will just file lawsuit after lawsuit trying to get some lawyer to force the state to cough up the money, which basically means the state will be forced to raise taxes. I would love it if one lawyer in such a case would fire 10% of the upper administration of say, IPS, then cut the pay of everyone making $70-$110K by 20%, then 30% for those making over $110K. It would be a start.

Nobody at IPS makes $240/ year. Nor are Witches and Athesists suing IPS, or busdrivers taking students to shoplift at Castleton Mall.1430AM is to IPS what Fox News is to the President- LIES and half truths. Wayne Township's Supt makes MORE than anyone at IPS but we have a BONE to pick with IPS- a district that gets screwed by tax abatements yet has the most out-of- date buildings and the lowest paid teachers. I'd rather see a report on WHO is NOT paying taxes rather than how much certain people are making.

Ever hear the phrase “you get what you pay for”, John Doe? I don't want clerks running essential state functions.

Remember the bad old days at the License Branches? I don't want to go back to that. I'd just as soon stick with professional management of state functions, thank you very much.

Nobody at IPS makes $240K a year. Atheists and witches are not suing the district and bus drivers don't take students to shoplift at Castleton Mall. Actually Wayne Township's Supt makes more and has fewer students to deal with. 1430AM is to IPS what Fox Noise is to Obama-lies and half truths with a personal agenda. Let's see a report on who is paying taxes and WHO isn't in Marion County-tax abatements.

Thanks for the repeat. I don't have to tell lies and half-truths about IPS to make the district look bad. The truth is sufficient.

I wonder if someone will defend the $750K Dr. White is spending on electronic signs outside the high schools so, as he said, the students don't feel inferior to the counterparts at township schools.

If he thinks that electronic signs are going to improve education, then… well, you can fill in the blank.

I was wondering how long it would take an IPS tool to retool the Boogey Man Factory to produce Gin Goblins. I couldn’t wait until the revenue projections came out today. Just to hear all about how they'll have to start tossing orphans into wood chippers, to use as fuel heat the buildings…

Well when the board meets I am sure David Shane will lead the conversation with his pre agreed upon plan as has happened before. Shane has been driving this board's process since The Gov put him on there to carry out his mission. Wonder how they will blame all this on Sue Ellen and IPS. As I have said before…..Candidate Daniels use to have a great time when Kernan's numbers came in low saying ” I am not saying they are bad people just bad at governing”. Does the same quote still apply Mr. Gov?

It sounds to me like the governor is doing the best he can in a bad situation. This might end up being a good thing, if schools are actually forced to cut some of their bloated bureacracy.

“Knowledge and learning, generally diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement; and to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.” — Art 8 Sec 1

Who'd a thought that the simple passage above would become the biggest part of our budget.

Certainly, those who drafted this passage, and those who ratified it, certainly didn't.

“Ever hear the phrase “you get what you pay for”, John Doe? I don't want clerks running essential state functions.”

This is used by the underlying industry to justify continued wage and benefits hikes. “We have to pay more to get the BEST!” Whatever. It is typical of these entities to constantly play on each other, the end of which is that all the entities continue to push their executive pay and benefits to outrageous levels.

How can we justify paying the president of the US around $400K/year, with a benefits package, and then turn around and allow tax subsidized K-12 and higher education to pay their presidents that same amount of money with their own benefits package? If you use the “you get what you pay for” argument, then that means no US president will ever be good…ever, as why would a good manager take the job as president when they could likely just go run a big 10 school and make just as much money with a lot less to do?

In Indiana, if one person makes $100K/year plus benefits, you are rich. If you can't raise a family of four on that, then you are living large and need to take a more frugal outlook on life. There is no reason any K-12 superintendent to make over $100K/year if you ask me. Cap teacher pay at $50K-$60K (after many years of service), then go from there. How do we justify paying school administrators so much more money than the teachers? Same goes for higher ed. They need to start paying their executives out of their foundation money. The state needs to pay enough to try and cover, somewhat, wages need for _teachers_. If a professor isn't teaching, and a grad student is used, then that prof. needs to be paid out of foundation money for essentially doing nothing.

Truthhurtz, the cabinet and upper-level admins at IPS make over $2.5 million in salary and benefits, and that styaff has grown under Dr. White.

Amnd, he likes fancy signs. He insisted the school Foundation pay for non-electric ones in Washington Township. He insisted the signs were needed to better communicate with the patrons. The signs are now badly used—one has events on it that are three weeks old. They were so large they required zoning variances, which tagged on another $40K or so to the cost. He was reminded, if the signs were only reduced by about 10%, the variances wouldn't be needed. Forge on!

His ego has outlived its usefulness.

I didn't vote for Mitch. I think he's a tin-pot dictator. But I admire his pluck. He is facing the budget problem head-on. Common sense tells us the largest portions of the budget need cuts.

$300 million spread around 200 or so school corporations is possible. Some have already made deep cuts, as pointed out in The Star's story today. But I guarantee you, White's admin style and ego are duplicated multiple times around Indiana. Let me have a few hours with school budgets statewide. I could find $300 mil and not touch the classrooms.

$100K a year is not “rich”. Why is it that “rich” is always some arbitrary figure more than whatever the person deciding makes? Congress makes $170k a year (approx) and they determine “rich” to be $200k or $250k a year. Someone making $200k or $250k probably thinks $400 or $500k is rich. Of course, someone making $400k (AGI) a year probably paid $138,000 or so in income taxes (federal, state and local [Marion County or $2,600 less in Hamilton]) plus their property, sales, excise and other taxes.

Anyway, that's besides the point. I think teachers should be paid far more than they are. It should pay well enough to attract the best the brightest and to be an ambitious career goal rather than one that requires more education than the salary will ever justify.

Heck, the suggestion here that a school superintendent should make less than any good salesperson at a technology company or manager of a big box store just sits wrong with me. I've always felt that the best teachers in the country should have their talents be in demand just like pro ball players and they should be treated like superstars.

BUT, I also think that in the age of technology there are more efficient ways to teach kids than having teachers, in every school, repeating the same lessons, every year and still using big, bulky text books. This is why we need open and free competition in the marketplace of education instead of union and near government monopoly control.

I'm convinced that educating the kids can be done far cheaper, far better and in more engaging ways. BUT, it just may not lend itself to creating big empires and padding resumes in ways that should be done in the private sector, not on the public dime.

Sean, you're right. A good superintendent is worth a quarter-mil. No argument. But name me ten good supers in the state. I'll give you an hour or two…

Does (s)he need a cabinet of yes-persons out the whazoo? And travel all over God's green acres, at taxpayer expense? And a Car? Please. Company cars are dinosaurs…let him/her use a carpool vehicle or pay mileage.

The entitlement attitude of most school admins is over the top. And you know they get their admin licenses at colleges where the faculty consists largely of school admin-apologists (i.e., Mary Busch and her ilk). There hasn't been any new blood in that system for a few decades. Recycled fired superintendents teach those courses.

It's important because in 95% of the schoool district statewide, the Superintendent is the defacto school board. Because the elected school boards are lapdogs to their superintendents.

Without a publicly-elected watchdog to worry about, decades have passed, and Indiana admins are foolishly power-hungry and arrogant. That power establishment has grown in independence and elitism. They have their own hired guns at the legislature, and they wield much power there. Admins write the budgets, set the priorities, and woe the school board members or citizens who question anything.

Good superintendents realize the elected school board can be a powerful tool, and they use it to their advantage. In more than one local system, the PTAs gather and slate school board candidates every two years, with the superintendent participating in the process, or, at the very least, his/her heavy hand is all over the process.

We'll win the budget battle, when we have common-sense school admins. We accomplish that when we bust up the admin cartel, and allow experienced, degreed, intelligent persons to become admins with a modicum of “school administration” flash-learning.

Six weeks of in-service, and many CEOs or CFOs I know could run a school system better asleep, than most school admins can awake.

One more caveat: with the exception of class size, which is a board-superintendent choice, teachers should have more freedom and should earn more. Cut these lavish central office positions, push the paperwork down to the lowest-possible salary level–honor that service, but don't triple-pay for it, just because some Ball State-trained school admin tells you an administrator “must” perform the task. Balderdash.

Upside down. That's how we need to turn school administration practices. Completely. Yesterday. We can no longer afford their arrogant and expensive ways. They have no basis in reality.

“$100K a year is not “rich”. Why is it that “rich” is always some arbitrary figure more than whatever the person deciding makes?”

In the state of Indiana, given what a human needs to survive (food, water, and shelter), $100K/year is rich. However, in America, folks think they need things which aren't really related to survival, thus they feel poor unless they can afford a night out at the movies every weekend, a new car every two years, the newest and most costly electronics, etc. etc..

“Sean, you're right. A good superintendent is worth a quarter-mil. No argument. But name me ten good supers in the state. I'll give you an hour or two…”

No one heading something the size of IPS needs to make a quater million…no one. There is no way to justify that. Like you said, these people can't make that kind of money in the real world, so they do so in the publically funded world. I will say this: If a superintendent can go out, raise money privately, then yea…share a % cut with them. That % can be determined by the school board, and somewhat via the voters who vote for them. So if a super can go out and drum up $100K in grants and donations in a year, I have no problem giving them 10% of that. However, it is time to cap super pay at that of the judge/prosecutor/sheriff. Those pays are all over $100K/year and that is plenty of money if you ask me.

Don't forget Mitch's support as White House OMB Director for $2 trillion dollar war solely financed by the U.S. Treasury combined with a run up in gas prices topping $4 gallon that has fueled large unemployment and economic decline in Indiana's manufacturing industry.

Senator Lugar tried to warn the hawks that a war is expensive and that we needed financial and military support from our allies similar to the first Gulf War.

However Lugar's comments were dismissed by President Bush and his war cabinet. Mitch even helped get Lawrence Lindsey fired for projecting a war cost of $100-$200 Billion saying at the time it would cost about $50 $60 Billion. Wolfowitz said it would be paid for with oil revenue from Iraq.

Here are the Facts:

In October 2007, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that by 2017, the total costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could reach $2.4 trillion

The U.S. did not use oil revenue from Iraq to repay the U.S. treasury. Within the last thirty days Iraq has awarded the majority of oil development contracts to China and Europe.

I wouldn't say they can't make that kind of money in the real world. Depends on their skills and what they are willing to do. I'll mention it again… top sales people in the telecommunications, medical devices or any number of other industries can make $140k and up if they just meet their quotas.

Big box store managers make upwards and beyond of $120k I believe.

It really comes down to whether or not you want to attract ambitious, talented people or not. People will go where the money is. BUT, Think Again is correct (and often is), that you have to get rid of some old ways of thinking and doing things.

There is a certain education arrogance that permeates a lot of our institutions (public and private) … I know someone that almost didn't get hired as a receptionist because they didn't have a college degree? Huh? Give me a smart, ambitious person who can properly absorb and digest information and knowledge regardless of formal education any day.

Testify, Nick. All true. Thank you.

http://www.indianacourts.org/apps/webcasts/defa... Meanwhile, the termites don't care if the house falls down.

Agreed, Iraq was a cluster and primarily a Republican one at that. I think the most sound fiscal move President Obama has done is to get us out. Unfortunately, it's now been followed by proposed return to Afghanistan(!?!), coupled with unaffordable expansion of government such as the proposed health “reform”.
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I'm not picking on any party as much as the American people. As every other campaign sign says, “Had Enough?” I think political party propaganda is now “comic books” compared to the real “literature” of the issues we must absorb- and then vote accordingly.

Senator Mitch Daniels, keep up the great work in Indiana.

“Rich” & “poor” are the divisive terminology of condescension; the intellectual impairment & emotive extortion of good natured Americans, in the theft & misappropriation of their hard earned income & assets.

Charity, or concern for the welfare of our brothers & sisters is decent. Guilt however, is inviable policy, unsuitable for import or export. Political schemes based on “lowest common denominators” are no substitute for standards.

$800 million in the hole? You guys are sitting fine and living big. Check our (Illinois) debt, we wish we only had an $800 million shortfall. Hell, we'd give a billion $ just to have your problems.

“I cried because I had no wife, then I met a man who had no hands.”
–Wankonomous

$800 million in the hole? You guys are sitting fine and living big. Check our (Illinois) debt, we wish we only had an $800 million shortfall. Hell, we'd give a billion $ just to have your problems.

“I cried because I had no wife, then I met a man who had no hands.”
–Wankonomous

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