The following is the relevant text of a letter sent to a member of the Martin County School Board when we first heard she had a problem with In Your Corner article “Home Depot High? Don’t Think So”:

“ …we owe you a personal answer to your very critical analysis ... and … assure you that criticism of the Schools and School Board were not … (our) intention.  We try to look at the top-level priorities of the folks that spend (taxpayer) funds and gently focus their attention, and that of the voters, on what we believe are important. As to the specific points we made:

     First, we criticized the idea advocated in several positive media articles about "selling" or branding our schools to a major company.  We believe that this should not be done lightly, and school names selected should be a positive reflection on the County.  Also, if the decision is made to raise money in this manner the School Board should tightly control the spending.”  

     Second, we complimented Martin County's Schools, Board and management on the many positive accomplishments of the past year.  We also noted what was widely reported over the last week in much of the local and national media:  FL and USA students DO NOT favorably compare with students in much of the developed world.  This is a fact and should concern everyone as we face an extremely competitive global economy.

     The final point was highlighting how much money is spent per student (in Martin County). … the gross money spent and ratios of personnel to pupil were used because they were relevant, easily obtained and readily comparable to other districts.  We specifically did not criticize what you spend, but only asked that those in charge look and see if economies are available. …

The bottom line is that our organization is extremely concerned over the amount of public money being spent per citizen in Martin County.  Our population has grown by 2 - 3% for many years.  However, taxes and public sector spending have grown by 10 - 20% per year for over 10 years and is accelerating.  There is no one area to place the blame and much money has been spent on what, taken alone, are good, easily defended ideas. However, when taken in their totality, many are not good value and may be unaffordable luxuries. 

    We want to focus our residents’ attention on the totality of the problem and try to instill a mindset that emphasizes efficiency in all areas of government, including our schools.  There is nearly 3/4 of a billion dollars, or roughly two million dollars a day being spent on a County population of 142,000.  That is more than $5,000 for every man woman and child in the county this year.   Using the 2 1/4 persons average, that is $11,250 or over $30 per day per household.  Our schools spend some $13 per day of that amount and the public deserves to understand how much they are spending, where it comes from and what it purchases.  Unfortunately, public sector budgets and accounting systems are usually not geared to easily provide that data. 

    We believe there is rapidly approaching a time when many of our current residents can no longer afford to live in Martin County.  The Taxpayers' Board volunteers much time and energy doing everything in our power to try to counter that eventuality.  Please help!”

We stand by our original article and the above response. Again, our intention is not to criticize the Schools or School Board, who obviously do a good job with their primary duty of education. Our effort is to try and reverse a trend toward unsustainable spending throughout our County’s Government.

One of the frustrations we incur in researching and reporting on public sector spending is obtaining complete and verified data. In this case, all data used was from the School Board of Martin County’s web site and that of other districts’ for comparison. In fact, we changed the total budget figure used in preparing the article on advice of a School Board member. We would welcome School Board member(s) and/or Budget Director at our next Board meeting to discuss their budget and budget process. A jointly written article could then clarify the issues for the voters.