Creating a dedicated line item in Anaheim’s city budget for schools within city limits is bad public policy. It is foolishness.

The Lincoln Club’s Bob Loewen and the OC Register editorial page have ably pointed out many of the reasons why it would be folly for the City Council to adopt the Anaheim Union High School Districts request, but there are additional reasons why it would be a poor policy.

Creating such a budget line item invites the special interests that dominate school district elections into city government politics, because there is tax revenue at stake. They will have an incentive to use their significant muscle to influence council elections in favor of whichever candidates ares most favorable toward augmenting that budget line item and expanding its scope. Ultimately, the teachers unions and the classified unions could push to place an “education tax” sales tax on the city ballot to fund city subsidies of local schools. The more money City Hall pumps into public schools, the more funds districts will have to meet the demands of their unions.

Once such a line item is created, there will never be a lack of rationales for increasing it. Is anyone aware of a school district ever saying it had enough revenue? On the contrary, the most common word in the vocabulary of the educracy is “more” — followed by the shopworn entreaty “for the children.”  It will also be politically difficult, if not impossible, to cut or eliminate this line item once those funds are connected to a school site. Will future city councils – especially if they’re dominated by liberal Democrats – be able to withstand the parade of school children, parents and teachers coming to the podium and pleading with them not to cut this or that program? Not likely.

What about Anaheim public schools in the Orange Unified School District? If the city provides funding for those schools, what is to stop the OUSD Board of Education from saying “thank you very much” and then shifting their own funds away from those schools in order to bolster funding for school sites in Orange and Garden Grove?

Joint-use agreements between Anaheim and the various school districts with facilities within city boundaries are nothing unusual and make sense – especially if city expenditures underwrite opening school athletic fields and facilities for use by the general public. Providing public parks and recreational opportunities are a core mission of city government.

But these can be negotiated on a case-by-case basis; a budget line item is unnecessary to accomplish this goal.