The Democrat spin coming out of Concord is that either you’re in favor of the Lynch amendment or you’re in favor of an income tax.  In the words of State Senator Martha Fuller Clark, “If the Legislature and the citizens defeat this amendment, they are saying the state should fund the full cost of education.” She went on to say, “That’s a lot of money. No other state except Hawaii pays for all of it. If the Republicans block this, they’re voting for a broad-based tax. That’s what they accuse the Democrats of supporting.” 

What poppycock!

It was not an act of God that set the cost of an adequate education so high that, as Clark brags, it can only be paid for with an income tax.  It was the Legislature’s choice.  They didn’t have to define an adequate education in a way that requires an income tax.  In fact, they didn’t have to define an adequate education at all.  Any legislator who voted for the Lynch definition of an adequate education voted to hold an income tax over the voters’ heads to force them to support the Lynch amendment.  And that’s called blackmail.    

As for the Lynch amendment, one would think that it was handed down to our Governor on Mount Sinai.  State Senator Peter Burling gushed that it would be a “constitutional affirmation” of Claremont.  And that it most certainly would be.  Among other things, this stinker of an amendment would put the Supreme Court in ultimate control of education policy for perpetuity, require the Legislature to regularly go through the sham exercise of defining an adequate education and determining its cost, and require that 50 percent of that cost be paid for with state taxes.  At best, it only delays an income tax.  No wonder then that Burling’s reaction to the amendment’s unveiling brought to mind Charlton Heston’s performance as Moses receiving the Ten Commandments.

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Watching the Alton Selectman’s Correia hearing should be a wakeup call to every city, town and state official. How do you define "double-dipping"?  Is it the taking pay for outside details while receiving pay for hours not worked for regular duty? The answer is obvious YES.  What is problematic was lack of documentation on that point.

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The common off-duty traffic control job is privately paid for work.  When an “Off-Duty” police officer act in the capacity as a traffic control person, the work performed is nothing other than a part-time job.  “Privately paid” work is first offered to off-duty police officers in the city or town the work is to be performed.  Then, as described during the Correia hearings, the part-time job is offered to surrounding off-duty law enforcement communities’ employees.  If no off-duty police officers, “salaried” or hourly, opt to work the traffic details then it is offered to the off-duty county sheriffs.  Ultimately, a private employer may be allowed to provide a certified flag person.

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It’s about time that some of the myths being ventilated about education funding get cleared up.  So let’s start with three that are particularly relevant to the current legislative effort to define an adequate education by the Court’s July 1, 2007 deadline:

Myth #1:  “If the Legislature doesn’t define an adequate education, the Supreme Court will do it for them.”  The truth is that for as long as the Legislature and the Governor continue doing the Claremont kowtow, the Court, not the Legislature, will be the branch of government that ultimately sets education policy.  This should come as no surprise because the Court said just that in Claremont I.  Specifically, it said that it is the Legislature’s task “in the first instance” to define adequacy.  In plain English, the Court gave itself the power to rewrite some or all of the definition. 

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