Opinion: The folly of bonuses during crisis

If Florida lawmakers insist that raising taxes is irresponsible in a time of economic distress, then they might consider this political corollary: Handing out bonuses is not smart business when employees are being laid off.

That's one possible implication of the ill-defined education spending priorities of this disastrous special session on the state budget. Gov. Jeb Bush, the state's chief administrator, called legislators into session insisting that public education was his highest priority, but he has offered nothing more than "guiding principles." More to the point, little more than a month before issuing the call for the session, Bush was taking a publicity tour around the state, handing out "bonus" checks to public schools.

"When you work hard and your teachers do all the right things, your teachers and principal get to decide how to spend some extra money," Bush said at one stop.

Extra money?

Even in normal budgetary times, when Florida is not facing a $1.3-billion deficit, the Bush school bonuses are difficult to defend. They are awarded to schools based on the results of one standardized test, and they generally are handed to schools that already have the greatest advantages -- such as the $147,136 to Stanton College Prep in Duval, an accelerated academic choice school that selects its students based primarily on test scores, or the $150,226 to Pine View School for the Gifted in Sarasota County, which accepts only students with higher intelligence. Further, the schools can't use the bonus money for longterm or recurring expenses, because they might not receive it from one year to the next. So many of them use the money to award one-time bonuses to their teachers -- while teachers at other schools with greater challenges receive nothing.

At a time when school districts may be forced to lay off teachers, leave teaching positions vacant and limit instructional choices, the Bush bonuses amount to folly. They distribute money to schools with almost no relationship to need or to effort, and this year they are costing the state $76-million. That's almost two-thirds of the amount the state Senate was forced to cut from the public education budget.

Isn't there a cheaper way to provide the governor with photo opportunities?

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