No One Asked Me But…

by Dr. Larry Moses

No one asked me but…I am not an economist, accountant, nor a financier and that might be why I find the following statement a bit confusing. The Clark County School District plans to spend $12 million to save $678,886.

By giving up the leases on four office buildings and relocating eight departments to district property, the district will save the nearly seven hundred thousand dollars in the General Operating Fund. However, to accomplish this they will have to spend $12 million of the proceeds of the 2003 short term bonds. The rationale is that the $12 million dollars will come from bond money and the savings will come in general fund money.

Excuse me for being dumb but isn’t all of those tax dollars you and I pay? I would assume that the cost is in the module buildings they would have to purchase to replace some of the offices now leased. There would also be some cost in remolding some of the district’s buildings available for office space. In about 17½ years these remodels and module buildings will pay for themselves.

I understand that you cannot use bond money for items in the general fund but why did they use general fund money for offices in the first place? Because they could, that is why. The district would lead you to believe that the general fund money is for the direct benefit of the students and bond money is for the construction of buildings. While they would never look for ways to use bond money on general fund expenses (that is prohibited by state statue) they often use general fund monies for things other than the things that directly affect the student. It might be a good idea for the number crunchers at the district office to go through the budget and transfer any cost they find that is legal and move it to that part of the budget funded by monies that come from sources other than those used for the General Operating Fund.

No one asked me but… I will have to admit that the Nevada University System Chancellor Jim Rogers is much brighter and richer than I. With that said, let me react to a number of Chancellor Roger’s comments in defending the State University System from the projected cuts that the state school may suffer. Mr. Rogers surely doesn’t need the job.

After coming through the door and hanging up his sweater, this Mr. Rogers did not sing, “I Want To Be Your Neighbor.” The good chancellor sang: “Education… is not just a question of getting degrees so you can get a job. Education is designed to build culture, and frankly I am distressed about the culture that we have in Nevada. I think that we started out not thinking culture is very important, not thinking reading was very important. I don’t think we thought math was very important, science was very important. I think what we thought was important was how do you get enough training in order to get a job in order to be able to pay your car payment, house payment, etc….I think that a majority…of people out there (are) saying, ‘We don’t care about anything but our own immediate problems. We want to know how we go from this Friday to next Friday. We want to know where we’re going on vacation; we want to know what kind of car we can buy… But you ask me what I want two years from now; I’ve never thought about what I want two years from now. And I could care less about you.’ We are not a caring society. We don’t care about each other; we care about ourselves and our own pocket books.” Let me reintroduce Chancellor Rogers to psychologist Abraham Maslow and his theory of the pyramid of needs. Maslow would suggest that man has five stages of needs. From the lowest to the highest level: Physiological, Safety, Belonging, Esteem and Self-actualization. Maslow tells us man must fill each level of needs before he will move to the next level. Until the lower needs are filled, the upper ones have no significance. If catching your breath is an issue nothing else matters at that moment. Remember the last time you had the wind knock out of you. At that point you were not concerned with what your philosophy of life is. Your only concern was your life.

There is no doubt that the good chancellor has reached the top of Maslow’s pyramid but many of us are still striving to fulfill the second stage of Safety. While most of us are beyond the lowest level physiological needs, the need for oxygen, food, water and a relatively constant body temperature, many of us are working at the second level, safety needs.

Middle class Americans, for the most part have moved to the third level where the need for love, affection and belonging become important to us. This is the place where most of us stop in the pyramid and that is not all bad. If a member of the unwashed masses sometimes sneak into the top level of the pyramid, where self actualization takes place, most of them slip rapidly back to the third or fourth level of needs. That doesn’t make us bad people –only middle class Americans. The American middle class doesn’t often dip into fine wine. The family barbeque on the weekend where we can enjoy a diet soda with family meets the needs of most of us.

It is easy to understand how Mr. Rogers, who though his own efforts has moved to the upper levels of Maslow’s pyramid, has forgotten when he too looked at education as a means to fulfill his safety needs.

He is right; many of us in the middle class are concerned with making it from Friday to Friday. Keeping food on the table is a driving force for many Americans. Since political leaders and the media have convinced the American people that a recession is here, it is little wonder the safety level of Maslow’s pyramid is in play for most of us. I am not about to ridicule Mr. Rogers for his level of success, but I would remind him that many of us are not there and may never reach that level.

It is apparently a fact that the state has budgeted for more than it can pay for it. One may argue with Mr. Rogers as to the lack of culture in Nevada, but there is little to argue with the fact that the state is nearly broke. We may well have to settle for the velvet Elvis rather than the Mona Lisa, a Smart Car rather than a Mercedes, a community college rather than Harvard. I am glad that Mr. Rogers doesn’t have to worry about the house payment but most of us are not that fortunate. It doesn’t make us bad people; it merely makes us the middle class.

Thought of the week… Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. – Albert Einstein

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