It is always fascinating to research the ways liberals find legislative maneuvers to skirt around the realities of running out of money to pay for their various “social justice” causes. A review of Baltimore Maryland education spending highlights their approach when they run out of other people’s money.
We say “other peoples money”, because we all know that liberals don’t spend their own money on these programs – instead they develop ways to “reach out” beyond their own economic roadblocks.
In Maryland there is a program called the Geographic Cost of Education Index or GCEI. A liberal legislative maneuver described thusly:
… a discretionary fund for school systems where educational costs are above the state average.
Removing the parseltongue you find the GCEI actually means a state budgetary funding trick to help pay for education within a community that has already exhausted its own ability to fund itself.
Expanding on the reality the GCEI also means: a state budgetary funding trick to pay for unsustainable union wages and benefits for educators within the school system that has exhausted its own ability to fund itself.
Quite a good liberal funding gimmick if you think about it. When the local community cannot, and chooses not to, afford to pay for their own educational expenses – they can simply demand STATE legislators set up a way to re-distribute the state wealth from municipalities who conservatively fund their own school districts.
Under this GCEI scheme the liberal municipality never actually runs out of money because the GCEI fills the monetary deficit from inside an unsustainable system. Neat trick eh?
This allows labor unions to embed auto pay increases and other unsustainable benefits into the labor contracts within the liberal school systems because the municipality has a funding mechanism beyond their own funding scope.
All goes well in liberal-land until the State Coffers begin to be exhausted due to subsidies demanded by the local districts. In essence the local failure to control spending becomes an insatiable parasite upon the larger state electorate. When that point is finally reached, the larger electorate quickly elect a conservative to deal with the deficit created by the inherently flawed liberal fiscal policies. (See Chris Christie in New Jersey, and Governor Hogan now in Maryland).
Baltimore received $1.8 BILLION in Obama stimulus funds to avoid the shortfall in 2010/2011. Baltimore spends $15,483 per pupil, second in the entire country (Fiscal Year 2011), most of that money going to outlandish pay, benefits and pensions for AFSCME/MSEA teacher union benefits.
And now Baltimore –along with other Maryland municipal districts– is apoplectic that recently elected Governor Hogan is no longer willing to fund the unsustainable redistribution scheme:
[…] Bill McLaughlin, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2981, said the remaining GCEI dollars were “already allocated,” adding that great schools boost the economy, raise property values and educate skilled workers “who allow businesses to flourish.” He challenged Hogan’s concerns over the “long-term structural deficit,” saying investment in education is fiscally responsible. (link)
I'm disheartened that Governor Hogan has chosen not to release GCEI funding to provide support for schools in Baltimore and across Maryland
— Stephanie (SRB) (@MayorSRB) May 14, 2015
I hoped that the Governor would have agreed with the General Assembly that these dollars are critical for expanded educational opportunities
— Stephanie (SRB) (@MayorSRB) May 14, 2015
Governor Hogan fires back:
More on the issue available HERE