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“Do as I say, not as I do.” That’s how Rolfe McCollister opens his latest column, using the adage to take Gov. Jeff Landry and most of the Legislature to task for telling local school district leaders to absorb the $168 million cut from school budgets—money that had funded teacher stipends—by reducing “the waste and the bureaucracy.”
McCollister points to Landry’s declaration that “it is time for these school boards to tighten their belt,” as well as the governor’s claim that the state has spent millions on stipends for principals and assistant principals who “don’t deserve it.”
McCollister raises three objections. First, he writes, Landry’s comments suggest the governor has long been aware of the waste yet said and did nothing, while the state handed out millions in stipends to employees he now says didn’t deserve them—so why did he allow it? Second, McCollister argues that even as Landry and the Legislature demand these cuts, their first move was to ask voters to pass a constitutional amendment giving them an easy out by tapping funds to cover current expenditures—doing nothing, he says, to eliminate waste or tighten any belts. Finally, he contends that Landry is quick to call school boards wasteful and bureaucratic but fails to apply the same standard to a state budget of $47 billion, with a general fund of $12.6 billion. He asks why lawmakers couldn’t find that $168 million for teachers in their own “wasteful spending.”
McCollister says he’s certain there’s money to be saved in local school budgets, and he advocates saving it—but he argues the same is true of state government, which he believes is always the most wasteful and inefficient operator, because it spends other people’s money rather than its own.
McCollister also calls out the governor for his veto of Senate Bill 125, passed unanimously by the Legislature. The bill would have raised the compensation cap for the wrongly convicted who served decades in prison from $400,000 to $600,000 over 15 years.
Turning to City-Brooks Park, McCollister asks whether Baton Rouge will “think different” about the discussion now underway. It’s not just about how the city uses this prime site in the heart of Baton Rouge, he writes, but about which voices are heard and whether all new ideas get a fair hearing. He says the Capital City has been held back for decades by the response, “That’s the way we’ve always done it before,” and wonders whether history will repeat itself.
Finally, McCollister wishes America a happy 250th birthday, celebrating the milestone and what he calls the greatest nation on earth. Read the full column.
