The Adventures of Mr. Silly in Nonsenseland

The Letter to the Editor below dealing with out-of-control school spending was originally published in The Mercury. It deals with an affluent school district in Chester County, but I'm sure this sort of wasteful spending goes on in every corner of Pennsylvania.

The adventures of Mr. Silly

I recently read a book to my grandchildren about Mr. Silly who lives in Nonsenseland.

In Nonsenseland, everything is as silly as can be such as cars with square wheels, blue trees and other things that make absolutely no sense. I believe our world has evolved into Nonsenseland.

Last month an auction was held at the OJR Middle School to dispose of "surplus" equipment. While many of the items for sale were well used, I was appalled at the amount of perfectly serviceable and brand new equipment and supplies being sold. Many of the taxpayers in attendance expressed their disbelief very vocally.

There were hundreds of chairs sold, some of which had just been placed in the high school cafeteria but didn't suit "the decor" so they were sold since new ones had already been purchased. Many of the classroom chairs could have been moved to the new elementary school to be used by the 4th through 6th grade students. Likewise, most of the stainless steel kitchen equipment could have been used at the new elementary facility. Huge bags of sports balls, baseball bats, new softballs "in the wrappers" were also sold, plus a myriad of other equipment which is sure to be replaced with items more to the liking of those in charge.

The security staff has also been provided with two new 4 WD SUVs. That purchase would be practical if high speed, off-road pursuits are expected, but compact four door, four cylinder sedans would have been more cost effective and fuel efficient. I understand that our athletic field bulbs are 1500W each. We have approximately 366 lights for a total of 549,000 watts (yes, that's over half a million watts) being consumed when all of the lights are illuminated. As you are turning off your 60W bulbs to save electricity, you can appreciate how much energy is wasted when even a portion of these lights are illuminated long after events have concluded or when events are canceled due to inclement weather.

I believe that all economics, conservation and recycling programs in the curriculum should be terminated and replaced with comedy routines since the people in charge don't practice what they teach and the students need to be taught to laugh about the situation so they don't require professional counseling for depression when they become taxpayers.

Would it be too much to ask the people who use our tax dollars to have spending constraints, possibly relinquishing some of the things they deem necessary such as catered meals for administrative meetings, but can't be funded because of budget shortfalls, just as we taxpayers are forced to do daily? That would sound like the logical thing to do, but remember, we now live in Nonsenseland. How silly is that!

JIM FITCH
Bucktown