The (Hays USD 489) Board of Education decided to hire a “facility improvement planner” at their last meeting. The result is there will be another out of town consultant to assist the school district with its capital outlay plans moving forward. This of course is in addition to the previous architect and space needs committee which spent over a year assessing what was alleged to be the “needs” of the school district when it came to capital spending on facilities. The BOE’s decision sends the wrong message to the voters and taxpayers at the wrong time.

Oh yeah, this capital outlay planner is also in addition to the newly hired architectural firm and project manager the BOE hired to assist with the never-ending quest to have the taxpayers approve a school bond. To paraphrase a well-known politically incorrect joke: How many outside consultants does it take to figure out where to spend our local taxpayer dollars?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it the job of the board members, the superintendent and the staff to sit down together and prioritize capital outlays going forward? In other words, why on God’s green earth does the BOE need yet someone else to advise them as to where they need to spend money on facilities?

This decision is eerily reminiscent of the BOE decision on the FAST building. BOE Member (Sarah) Rankin was absolutely correct when she wondered if voters would question “why they would need to hire the advisor, especially after already selecting an architectural firm and CMAR.”

Just as the BOE had a chance to do the right thing with the FAST building, it still has the chance to do the right thing now and just say no to the “facility improvement planner”. The members of the BOE simply need to suck it up, buckle down, spend some time and do the job themselves. That’s what the voters and taxpayers expected when they elected them to the BOE.

Tom Wasinger, Hays