Start with the superintendent's salary.  Supt. Michael Hinojosa said recently that he's not going anywhere. He told reporters that he's not resigning and the worse thing that could happen is if he left. He intends to stay and take care of the problem. DISD trustees should give him a little nudge to start looking.  Cut his $379,000 salary down to what he's worth -- which isn't much, according to my calculation.

Who, in fact, can blame us for questioning whether he's the right person to take care of the district's financial problems.  After requiring months upon months to perform an audit, he now reports that the district overspent its budget by $84 million.  How does that happen without the superintendent being aware of it? Departments have budgets and when they overspend, he should know about it.

I've yet to see an adequate explanation of the budget-busting. Where and how did it occur? And where has the Dallas School Board been while the budget was going down the drain? The school board has a fiduciary responsibility to oversee the budget and should be getting monthly reports.

Instead of balancing the budget on the backs of teachers, Hinojosa needs to look for cuts on Ross Avenue, in the administration building.  A Dallas News story this morning says the central administration office has 275 vacant jobs, of which 100 will not be filled.  How many administrative positions are there, for lord's sake? I'd like to see a student-administrator ratio before a single teaching job is cut.

The school board is right to delay its vote on cutting 675 teachers.  There are still too many questions unanswered and other cuts that should be made. True, knocking the superintendent's salary down by a couple of hundred thousand bucks won't solve the deficit problem.  But it will send a message to him about what happens when the overseer is unaware that the district has been profligate.

Meanwhile, where is the "education mayor" in this discussion? Tom Leppert ran on a platform that called for the mayor to be more involved in public education in this city. Where is his leverage to get the business community to lend some expertise to a school district that obviously is led by people who may have learned their ABCs but never mastered simple addition and subtraction. 

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