Small schools' actions hurt their own cause

No issue is more important to us than our children and the role their education plays in their future. Not as emotional, but just as important, are the financial sacrifices all of us make to keep public schools in operation and up to speed.

But that doesn't excuse the actions of officials at a few Class I districts, who seemed to think that they were justified in playing fast and loose with taxpayer money, just because they disagreed with heavy-handed control from Lincoln.

State Auditor Kate Witek says she's found thousands of dollars in questionable spending by some of the state's elementary-only school districts, which were merged into larger K-12 districts on June 15.

That includes $149,000 paid by several schools to Class I's United to fight the merger. Taxpayers in those districts contributed, with or without their knowledge, $22,000 in dues, $39,500 in legal fees, $67,000 for donations and $20,000 for "unknown" fees toward the political fight. Class I's United then paid about $24,000 to a group which ran petition drives to save the small schools.

More blatant are other examples:

* A Class I near Chadron wrote $41,000 in checks to a teacher above her normal salary, including $14,223 for a "field trip" to Hawaii.

* A school paid $1,349.27 for a limousine to transport students from Albion to a Hastings museum.

* A Plattsmouth Class I entered into a contract with a teacher in June 2006 for more than $100,000.

* A school near Wahoo auctioned off all its assets, including computers and digital cameras, for $1,080 before it was merged with a larger district.

If local officials want to preserve local control, they must prove themselves worthy of it. Examples such as these are doing more to hurt their cause than any misguided action the Legislature might taken.