Apr 16
Stan to the rescue
By Denise Ross
When Rapid City school administrators sounded the funding alarm, Stan Adelstein got out his checkbook.
Stan Adelstein put his money where his mouthpiece used to be, but the Rapid City Area School District is still well short of the money it’s going to need in the near future.
Adelstein pledged $165,000 to pay for elementary band and orchestra.
That is the lead of the lead story at the Rapid City Weekly News. Meanwhile, the Rapid City Journal also reported on Tuesday’s packed school board meeting as the winged prayers of SD’s school funding formula came home to roost in the state’s second-largest city.
“For years, music has been an essential part of my life,” said the politician and philanthropist Stanford Adelstein. “This opportunity must not be taken away from our children.”
Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a photo of Stan at the mic.
Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Katus, the incumbent Democrat who will face Stan, a Republican, in November, also took to the microphone, after shaking Adelstein’s hand.
Katus … said the state has to shoulder a lot of the responsibility for the problems Rapid City and other school districts face. “Someone’s going to have to pay for our kids.”
Stan promised to, if elected, work to rewrite the state’s K-12 funding formula.
Adelstein also said he wanted to return to Pierre in the next session to find a way to alter the per-pupil funding system, which he said is based on antiquated formula that heavily favors rural districts and property owners, and repair the hole in the Rapid City Area School District’s budget.
(Yeah, Stan, I don’t know if you want to paint “property owners” as the bad guys here. Just sayin’.)
What would really be impressive is if Stan could get Gov. Mike Rounds to join him.
The current formula was written under the watchful eye of Adelstein fave Bill Janklow. And it averted a property tax revolt. But ask anyone who was around the Capitol in the mid-’90s, and they’ll tell you they knew they were kicking the can down the road. Not that I blame them, politics being the art of the possible and all.
But now Gov. Rounds is playing two of the three monkey parts in the Hear No Evil / See No Evil / Speak No Evil trio, pretending like somehow the schools got themselves into this fiscal mess. (Anyone care to argue that it’s not a mess? I think we’re beyond that argument, but I’d love to hear the case that all is well.)
As Bill Janklow will tell us all, it takes executive leadership to undertake a task as massive and volatile as rewriting the school funding formula. As sincere and thoughtful as Stan is, he is not in this case an executive.
Given Stan’s role in Rounds’ political success, is it now payback time? Or will Katus and the Dems carry the day on this while they regain control of the Senate and set SD up for a Dem governor in 2010?
For more good debate on this, see the Robbinsdale Radical.
4 Comments so far
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I think the gov. has drawn the line in the sand when he scolded the locals for stockpiling cash.
The best chance our educators have to see some help from Pierre is too vote for Dem’s. If the Senate Dems could get a majortiy, I think we would have a much better form of State government.
Too bad Stan isn’t a Dem, he sure talks like one.
Although one must respect Adelstein for his generosity I’m afraid that is where it must stop. In all the years he served in the legislature he was unable to pass much other than gas on the third floor. The education funding Gordian knot will require someone with true leadership skills to untangle. We in west river have been unable to send such an individual to Pierre and surveying the candidates so far does not give one much hope for this election cycle. Perhaps we need a parent’s uprising that demands politicians offer concrete proposals for solutions rather than the giberish we have been fed for the last ten years or so. We must be certain the people we send to Pierre understand that we are no longer going to be satisfied with their disembling behavior. If we fail to insist on this we will have nobobdy to blame but the the person we see in the mirror every morning, and be satisfied with our ranking at the bottom of every measure of sucess. No, Stan’s 165k and his empty promises will not solve our problems, they will only satisfy his own ego.
I wonder if this “donation” will have to be reflected on his campaign finance report ? haha
Stan used his own money to prop up the Journey Museum for a year or more, about 250 thousand I think. In the end he had to walk away. He may prop up the music program for a year, but after the election , he will just have to walk away.
When the ship is taking on water and sinking, sooner or later you realize bailing water isnt enough, you gotta fix the hole or abandon ship, Stans “donation” is just bailing water, for votes I’m afraid.
Denise, you got it partly right - I did not suggest that the formula favored homeowners, who pay more than three times the mill levy that aggies do on the same valued property.
When I asked the Governor, at a meeting with other Hills supporters when will we see fairness, his reply “when you have the votes Stan, when you have the votes.”
With the change after reapportionment, the Legislature has a very different mix as regards urban and rural. On top of that we have new moderate leadership from Sioux Falls. Despite what “Wally” says David Knudson and I were able to get Seven Million “outside of the formula” when I was last in the Senate.
I believe that, whether or not I am elected, with those that are likely to be elected on the Republican side, I can forge an alliance which will change the “formula.”
This is not bailing a sinking ship, it is stopping one of the holes while we succeed in fixing the rest of the ship.
I am truly sorry that my effort is seen as an election ploy. I was not running for office, when the Journey was stopped from failing - seems to me it is still open with growing attendance and usage. There was no election even dreamed of when I did the same with the Boy’s Club mortgage over 42 years ago, or the then “new” library 36 years ago, or rebuilding the Penney’s building and Woolworth, 17 years ago. I only did the same thing I have always done, put back into the town that has treated my family fairly, with earnings from a business made great not by me but by skilled employees (who by the way also prospered greatly - as well they should have)
I feared that this would have been seen as a political gesture, but I could not, as I wanted, wait until after the first of the year, by which time the program would have been irreversibly ended - faculty gone, and children out of music as was pointed out by Kenny Putnam among others.
Too long, sorry Denise - you always manage to do a better job and briefer.
Stan A
Thanks for elaborating, Stan. I still contend the gov could do more than shrug his shoulders if he truly wanted change. You certainly did more than that when he needed help. -Denise