Linking with the community

As implausible as it sounds, I think the City of Racine officials could teach the administration in RUSD a thing or two about “linking” with the community.

According to a recent Journal Times article, the mayor and aldermen (alderpeople?) are holding public listening sessions regarding the upcoming budget process. City revenues are expected to grow by $1MM and the mayor has directed all the departments to keep their spending at 2006 levels so it would seem the city will have “extra money” to spend. The listening sessions are to assist city officials “determine what the public thinks are the priorities and what departments and programs should receive this additional funding.”

While I know that RUSD will never hold a listening session for public input on how to spend “extra money”, they should be holding listening sessions to help educate the public on their budget process and explain which program/services/positions cannot be cut and why. They might even discover that some community members have money-saving ideas that had not been explored by administration, the board or their team of consultants.

Linking with the community has never been one of this administration’s strengths, and it is definitely time for that to change.