BONUSES DURING DEFICITS A CLEAR EXAMPLE OF DETROIT
PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT VOODOO ECONOMICS AT WORK
How in the world do you get a bonus when your employer is in deficit status?
Well, the emergency financial manager at the Detroit Public Schools has found a way to bring the corporate play book to a school district that won't buy books for its kids.
Depending on where you sit (a recipient of the bonus or a parent who cannot get your child's teacher to make accommodations for a child's proven disability), Roy Roberts should either be fired or retained as EFM for using badly-needed district funds for what is being called a public relations giveaway.
DPS has a "projected" 2010-2011 "surplus" of about $10 million or so...why that money is not being used to pay down its $75 million deficit escapes a lot of people. Any major dent in a deficit that large has positive financial repercussions for the entity in debt. Or better yet, why not put that money into classroom equipment, building supplies, and a fundamental learning device called...books.
For some people it is a bribe or trade off for labor harmony. For others, it is an example of how DPS got in the hole in the first place. Either way, it comes from a corporate philosophy that says that when things are at it worst, pass out bonuses, not based on merit, but based on a strategy of garnering endearment to someone the unions may now tell its members is a benevolent dictator.
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