Real culprits behind Bibb schools financial woes hiding under the Gold Dome | Editorials | Macon.com

via Real culprits behind Bibb schools financial woes hiding under the Gold Dome | Editorials | Macon.com.

By Telegraph Editorial Board

The Bibb County Board of Education is struggling — not with how to improve education in the county, but how to pay for basic educational needs. The eight members of the board have been vilified and pilloried. They’ve been called wasteful and tax-a-holics.

The board has to shoulder its share of the blame — mostly for not taking some of the recommended steps to avoid the cliff they now face , such as closing up to 12 elementary schools and leveling class sizes to save $3 million to $4 million. Additional staff reductions through attrition would have saved, according to the strategic plan, $15 million to $20 million. However, the board is, by far, not the main group residents should be angry with.

Ire should be directed at elected representatives in the Georgia General Assembly. That elected body has been anti public education for a decade, stripping school districts of funds to balance the state’s books to the tune of more than $8 billion with more cuts to come.