THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602030021
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: KEITH MONROE
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
As more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fall in place regarding the school finance mess in Virginia Beach, the picture that emerges is less the dark plot that some have imagined than a combination of high hopes, hyperkinetic management, lax oversight and loosey-goosey bookkeeping.
Councilwoman Louisa Strayhorn, who used to examine books for a bank, says until she checked out the school's finances her worst fear was defalcation - a 50-cent word for somebody's hand in the till.
That wasn't the problem. Instead, the schools succumbed to a more mundane malady - counting on revenues to be large and expenses to be small. At the center of the drama is former superintendent Sid Faucette who some have painted in a Machiavellian light. The Music Man is more like it.
Faucette seems to have been a salesman, a visionary, a dreamer, a man who made things happen and kept a million balls in the air. He carried others along on the strength of his personality and patter. Unfortunately, when the music stopped, the books didn't balance.
The analogy of The Music Man to the Beach schools is particularly painful in one regard. In the play, the mayor was suspicious of Professor Harold Hill, so whom did he assign to investigate the professor? The School Board!
No problem. Hill simply turned them into a barbershop quartet. Every time they came around to demand answers, he'd blow on a pitchpipe and they'd sing another chorus of Lida Rose. Life imitates art.
Of course, Hill is a characteristic American type. Business is full of men whose schemes outstrip their balance sheets. Think of William Agee, running one business after another into the dirt - and being allowed to do so by pliant boards. Consider Ross Johnson, who legally looted RJR/Nabisco and is now on the board of directors of Archer-Daniels-Midland, laughably enough as ethics watchdog.
In public life as well, we are fatally attracted to fast-talkers who promise we won't have to pay for all the government services we desire. The reasons why a balanced-budget deal is needed and wasn't achieved are one and the same. We want seniors to be secure, a defense second to none, medical care for the poor and elderly - and lower taxes. A succession of Music Men have told us we could have all pleasure, no pain. The latest is Steve Forbes who supposes a tax cut for all will permit us to grow our way out of debt instead of creating more.
Such characters aren't necessarily villains. Often they are victims of their own overconfidence. In The Music Man, when little Winthrop finds out the musical instruments (and the bill for them) are real but the band is a pipe dream, he's angry and disillusioned. The professor tries to cheer him up.
``You're a wonderful kid. That's why I wanted you in the band.''
``What band?'' says the sadder but wiser Winthrop.
``I always think there's a band, kid,'' says Hill in the play's most poignant moment.
We all like to believe there's a band with 76 trombones or - in the case of public finance - a free lunch. It gets us in trouble. Our Puritan forebears must be rolling in their graves at our lackadaisical attitude toward debt and deficit, our buy-now, pay-later behavior. They are surely waiting for the inevitable day of reckoning when we get our comeuppance.
This isn't to say there's no place for outsize characters, dreamers, visionaries, optimists, leaders. But they've got to be tethered to reality. A board, whether in business or the local school district, is supposed to provide oversight, not a rubber stamp. An accountant is supposed to act as umpire and make sure the game is played by the rules, not look the other way when the rules are bent, not relax them in a fit of enthusiasm.
Should finances at the Beach be consolidated so the same people who have to levy the taxes and appropriate the dollars do the accounting? Of course. Do we need to live within our means, balance our budgets, save more, spend less and generally turn into green-eyeshade types when The Music Man begins his blandishments? Yes, again. It isn't as much fun, but it's a lot safer. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page.
by CNB