Im in the commericial building industry and do school work statewide and my sister is a teacher. The school system has the money, they simply dont spend it wisely. I know, what else is new. The school system statewide will lobby for money, but dont have a clue as to how to spend it. Schools even without the stimulas are built this time of year and theres no more than usual. These buildings are the best built buildings you can build. The school system is not at all involved in the design process and its there where huge money can be saved. They let factories reps and architects specify anything they want without going over budget. If they tried to save money instead of use all they have, we could put money to other resources. If bay county is losing students, why have we renovated almost every school in the last few years or built new ones without looking at the census first. Allow me an example... I was doing a jobsite visit in bay county and saw an unlandscaped area. I asked the contractor why they werent touching it and he informed me that it wasnt in the budget. Well, i looked at a specified product that has now become a monopoly product for the school system. This product is no better than their compeditors. So i put numbers together that showed the cost difference between the specified and a substitute. The cost was so large they could have landscaped the entire school property. I sent this breakdown to the school board as a private citizen and heard nothing back. When the private sector ie private schools expand, they watch their expenses like us citizens. When the government expands, they do so on our dime and without budger interest. Throwing more money at a situation is not the answer, especially when it comes to the government.
