Posted on 05/21/2003 12:00:42 PM PDT by GailA
Your Money: Memphis City School Board spending $7,000 on new chairs
The Memphis City School Board members say their board room chairs that are used for about 10 hours a month are uncomfortable, so they're spending $7,000 of your tax dollars on 12 new ones.
The Memphis City School Board is ready to spend $7,000 of your tax money on new chairs. Those chairs would replace the ones in the board’s meeting room. Board members say the ones they have now are uncomfortable. The Board members only use their board room chairs twice a month, for just a few hours each time, but say they need new ones anyway. Board Member Lee Brown told Eyewitness News today he “did not feel it should be a big issue.”
The new chairs are made by Lay-Z-Boy and cost nearly $600 a piece. The Shelby County Board of Education just got new chairs. It spent just $122 for each one. So, the county paid about $1,700 for its 14 chairs while the City Schools is paying $7,000 for just 12 chairs.
If the Board spent that money on things for the students instead, for $7,000 it could get 5,600 elementary school lunches or more than 110,000 #2 pencils.
You can email them HERE to let them know about the WASTING of our tax dollars to make themselves MORE comfortable for just 10 hours a month, while our kids must sit on HARD wooden or metal chairs for 8 hours a day.
BTW there was NOT a thing wrong with the high backed chairs they use...just ONE FAT school board liberal who was to stupid to bring in a $20.00 back cushion for her chair.
She's going to the doctor to be treated for sitting in her bad, old chair!
</sarcasm>Yet another example of how there's nothing wrong with public education that can't be fixed simply and easily by appropriating more of your money.
Seriously, while lots of people at the TV station are feeling real proud of this blockbuster exposé, millions of dollars are swirling through the public school sewer without so much as a peep.
Local radio station encourages listeners to protest by dropping chairs off at Memphis school board
The Memphis School board is embroiled in controversy today because of a plan to spend seven thousand dollars for a dozen new chairs for board members. That comes to an average price of more than five-hundred-forty dollars a chair.
Board members say their current chairs are old and ergonomically inefficient.
Critics say the seven thousand dollar expenditure is just another indication that board members are out of touch with the needs of a financially strapped district.
The expensive chairs made for an interesting topic of debate this morning on Rock 103.
So much so that the station decided to donate six chairs to the board members. They were a bargain at 47 dollars for the bunch.
Viewers dropped by a couple of more chairs shortly after nine o'clock this morning. Those chairs were donated so they will cost taxpayers nothing.
The station is encouraging viewers to drop chairs off at the school board headquarters at Hollywood and Avery all day long.
I stopped to get gas today at a station out of town and I noticed the most ridiculous thing on the pump.
The city has a weights and measures department who affixes a sticker certifying that a gallon is a gallon. The County has another sticker from their weights and measures department declaring the same inspection has been performed by their checker. The state also has a sticker on the pump indicating that a gallon is a gallon and that my wallet is safe due to their oversight.
Now all three stickers have a clause at the bottom that tells you it is the stations duty to certify that a gallon is a gallon. So in effect, all three agencies indicate that they are all doing something that the owner/s are responsible for.
Now if it somehow works it's way down the massive empire of tripplicate state agencies that they are all three duplicating the efforts of not only each other but the operator as well and a light goes off in someones dim head, the bureau's #1,#2,#3 of weights and measures can $hit can their empire for some much needed budget savings.
I won't even get into the City, County, and State food inspectors. That's a thousand times worse. They do not actually inspect anything, they just publish guidelines and give seminars to McDonalds workers on food safety. All three divisions of them.
It's been ten years since I left but the chair still plays "Fate is the hunter" according to co-workers who have steered clear of it's comfort.
Maybe the same fortuna will find the Memphis chairs.
BTW The member who has the bad back (side)..has a VERY fat back side, she probably couldn't fit into the regular chair. They showed the chairs on the news, ain't a thing wrong with them. One reporter even sat in ALL of them and said they were all COMFORTABLE.
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