Let’s see what the contracts say

Nicholas Gartner, Henderson

Saturday, July 20, 2013 | 2 a.m.

Commissioner Tom Collins and his cronies did the unthinkable — they approved a new contract with public employees. It would appear that the only way that these public employee contracts will ever stop is when the entire country is bankrupt and there are no more dollars to buy ink to print more money.

When Collins knocked on my door back in 1988, we had a long conversation about government in general and taxes in particular. I voted for him because he promised me that he would look out for my tax dollars. I doubt if he remembers those words or loses any sleep over forgetting them.

It is time for the governor to appoint a citizens committee to break all public employee contracts and start over.

There are a lot of great arguments for this action, but just let me use this example: The education budget is $3.4 billion. Administration takes half right off the top, so we have $1.7 billion to teach our kids how to read and write.

The state could cut the cost of administration in education in half. There just is not enough money to supply bureaucrats with fancy offices, cellphones, company credit cards, generous salaries and automobiles any longer.

This would give us nearly a billion more dollars for school maintenance, teacher salaries, school supplies, class size reduction and a way to educate English-language learners separately so that all students can progress to graduation. It is only fair to give our children the best education we can. It is not fair to throw our money away on non-productive programs and studies that do not help our teachers in any way.

That would be a good start. Let’s see just how the citizens would react if they knew how bad things really are. How about laying out how public employee union contracts are negotiated.