It would have been a lot worse, but we couldn't find a cat house that takes credit cards.
Posted on 08/26/2012 2:28:08 PM PDT by Zakeet
Nearly $500,000 in charges include expensive dinners, extensive travel, and student lunch at Hooter's
Despite tightening school budgets and a perpetual rallying cry for more funding, Baltimore school administrators spent roughly $500,000 during the past year and a half on expenses such as a $7,300 office retreat at a downtown hotel, $300-per-night stays at hotels, and a $1,000 dinner at an exclusive members-only club, credit card statements show.
City school officials defend the majority of the credit card expenditures — outlined in statements and receipts obtained by The Baltimore Sun through a Maryland Public Information Act request — as "the cost of doing business," saying only a handful of "outliers" show questionable judgment or disregard for taxpayer money.
"We are working around the clock to engage our partners and move our agenda forward," said Tisha Edwards, chief of staff for the school system. "Every transaction has a business purpose in mind."
Among those transactions were a $450-per-person office retreat at the downtown Hilton, during which the 16 employees of the Information Technology Department were also treated to a $500 dinner at Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chao; and a $264 lunch for students at Hooter's.
A review of credit card transactions and receipts by The Sun found that the bulk of the expenditures — about $300,000, generated by 16 central office employees — were made under a new procurement-card program that has operated with virtually no controls or oversight since it began in January 2011.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
It would have been a lot worse, but we couldn't find a cat house that takes credit cards.
The company I start working for next week doesn’t issue corporate credit cards to anyone. And any business related expenses have to be approved in advance or they aren’t reimbursed at all.
The thugocracy - a democrat victim group.
I assume they must be talking about re-electing Obama?
That must have been lunch. If it was dinner, the tab would have been around $800.
If you have never been to a Fogo de Chao; you need to go at least once. It's about $50/person for dinner, but around $30 for lunch for the same service. It's awesome.
The solution to our education problem is very simple.
1. Determine what is the per pupil cost of education to the state.
2. Give a voucher that is equal to this amount of money to each and every family that has a child or children in school.
3. Allow this family to spend that voucher at any school they want to, be it private or public. The private and public schools must meet a minimum educational standard or they will not be eligible for this program and will thus be closed.
It should be noted that children with disabilities can take a large portion of the school budget. Private institutions must take these students in the same proportion as public schools. Otherwise the public schools would become a dumping ground for a very costly student group.
4. Tell the NEA to shove it where the sun does not shine and pay them off according to their accrued years of service in accordance with their contracts.
This is not rocket science, it is simply supply and demand.
Families that live in the depths of the welfare system want better for their children. They will be the number one advocates of this.
5. Sit back and watch academic excellence and scores soar.
6. End of problem.
That's the ticket.
I recently got a job at the Post Office -- the new Post Office. Now that postage and packaging revenues are the only source of income, you have to fight to justify a box of staples. When the schools have to compete for revenue from the number of students attending, all of a sudden, they'll get fiscal religion, too.
From K through 12, I was taught in old brick buildings with no AC or computers and with some classes having > 40 students. No tutors, no teacher assistants, no multimillion dollar campuses, (1) principal, no vice principals - you get the picture. Virtually everyone I went to school with graduated with a fine education and they were fully capable of reading, writing and doing arithmetic. Unfortunately, we can’t say this about many so-called educated children today.
When will taxpayers say, "enough is enough" to the "education industrial complex"?
If I did this with the company card, my employment wouldn’t survive the next audit.
Livin’ the good life in the land of peasant living!
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
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