Budget, Budget, Budget...

Advocates lobby for full funding of schools budget: "The school system says it needs more money to pay for new programs and hire more counselors and assistant principals for elementary schools, among other things. Others say the school system needs to share the wealth and back off some of its initiatives because the county simply does not have enough money.

School officials do not want to scale back any programs, however, and said this week that they may have to scrap salary increases for teachers, administrators and service workers if the County Council cannot find $19.7 million more.

‘‘We don’t have a lot of low-hanging fruit left, and with a major cut, we would have to make a reduction in personnel somewhere,” said Marshall C. Spatz, the school system’s budget director. ‘‘We can’t cut textbooks, special education, food or electricity, so we would have to cut people.”"

I got a better idea. Instead of repeating the same vicious cycle of school funding, transfer the primary source of school fundings from property taxes to general government revenue? It would immediately remedy most if not all problems with the school budget and you get to keep the programs you have.