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Temporary Help
Temporary HelpAlmost everyone whose work is guided by a budget — that's the vast majority of us — is familiar with the abiding, if misguided, underlying philosophy: Use it or lose it.
Didn't spend all your equipment money this year? What are the chances that that line item will get as much in the new fiscal year? Didn't spend all your travel allowance? Better pack a bag, hit the road.
As fiscal years come to a close, there often is frantic activity as managers make sure that they are spending every last penny to which their budgets entitle them, whether or not they need the items they are buying, the expenses they are incurring.
The corollary is that once you get used to spending a certain amount, it's hard to spend less, as many businesses have found to their distress in this recession.
The corollary, GOP leaders say, is what prompted them to turn down an offer of $125 million in federal stimulus money to boost the state's unemployment programs.
The money from Washington wasn't unencumbered, they said, and after it is gone the commonwealth would be stuck with having to meet new program costs that it likely will not be able to afford.
We questioned the legislature's decision in this space some weeks ago, and continue to argue that our leaders in Richmond could vote to return unemployment programs to their current status when the federal money evaporates, if we can't afford the expanded costs.
Legislators undoubtedly recognize that cutting a popular program would take more intestinal fortitude than most of them would care to muster.
We panned their decision, but will pat the local school system on the back if it comes to a similar conclusion.
Washington is dangling stimulus dollars before the school board, offering sufficient money to hire 14 new special-education teachers and assistants. The money is specifically assigned to special-education and cannot be spent for anything else.
The catch? The dollars disappear in two years.
While it strikes us that school officials, in this market, shouldn't have any trouble recruiting and hiring, even if the gig is relatively short-term, there are already rumblings about how an improving economy might enable Fauquier to keep its expanded teacher corps when the federal stimulus ends.
No one wants to cut a popular program. No one wants to spend less when they're used to spending more.
We are inclined to believe that our special-education teachers have been doing a better job than those rumblings imply.
Certainly, the ranks of special-education teachers and assistants — about 250 strong — could survive without so large an influx of newcomers, given that they have been surviving and that school enrollment has essentially been flat and is likely to remain that way for some time yet.
Indeed, we are convinced that The Great Recession and still unpredictable fuel prices will dampen enthusiasm for living this far out for quite some time.
Should Fauquier hire 14 special-education teachers and assistants with federal money? Sure, why not...as long as we are prepared to cut them loose two years hence.
Whether for unemployment benefits or fortified classrooms, federal stimulus money is stopgap funding to help us get over the hump. It is not meant to inflate state and local budgets to the breaking point.
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