What is the county's view on consolidation? Q to CUEE 24 March 2011

What about county voters, and what about the combined budget?

Q: "What is the county's view on consolidation?"

A: CUEE Chairman Leroy Butler answered:

"We did no poll of individuals in the county, so we don't have any; anything we say would be speculation."

Remember, only one of CUEE's board is from the county outside the City of Valdosta, and nobody outside Valdosta gets to vote in the referendum. They don't know what the county thinks, and they don't care, because legally they don't have to: if Valdosta votes to give up their school system, the Lowndes County school board has no choice but to pick up the pieces.

Here's the video:

Kick-off meeting, Community Unification for Educational Excellence, Inc., CUEE.
They're for consolidation of the Valdosta and Lowndes County School Systems.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
http://lake.typepad.com/on-the-lake-front/cuee/

There's another question in this video:

Q: "What are the potential savings?"

A: Consultant Steve Sprigohzy answered:

"If you believe in the end that running one system is cheaper than running two school systems. If in the end you are going to cast a vote for a single system because you think it would save money, I wouldn't cast my vote. I do not think it will save money."

That's CUEE's own expert consultant saying unification would not save money. And as we'll see they don't have a plan to improve education, either.

Sprigohzy went on to talk about "heart of hearts" and "if you believe". Well, I don't want to be asked to just believe. I want a plan to improve education and evidence that it would work, and they have neither. Instead, their own evidence demonstrates unification would not improve education and their own expert says it wouldn't even save money.

-jsq