"Now, what?"

I suspect there aren't many Beetle Bailey fans out there, but there's a running gag that seldom fails to make me smile.

It goes like this: a series of unlikely events and unfortunate decisions eventually produces a bizarre and ridiculous situation into which General Halftrack walks, completely unaware of the context. His invariable response: "Now, what??"

This came to mind recently upon hearing that the State Senate had passed legislation that would "prohibit a school board from taking votes or any other official action, other than votes of a ministerial or emergency nature, between October 1 of each odd-numbered year and the board’s re-organizational meeting following a primary election."

This legislation is apparently so important that it was "fast-tracked" (I guess there's nothing else going on at the moment.)

The intent, I'm sure, is to prevent boards that have just undergone a significant election turnover from making a 'lame-duck' decision that would be contrary to the will of the newly elected board. And, to be fair, lame-duck boards have occasionally made big, vindictive decisions on their way out the door, such as hiring or firing superintendents.

Here's one question: why "October 1st", a full month before the election?

But what really troubles me is that no consideration appears to have been given to how a board is supposed to conduct normal business for two months. Such as, "entering into any contract over $100" or "filling any kind of staff vacancy".  Are you kidding me??

I guess it's also safe to assume that no serious discipline issues ever come up in the months of October or November.

Why do legislators appear to have such little regard for elected school boards? Don't they realize that the citizens who vote for school board are the very same people who vote for state representatives?

It's stunning how willing our legislators are to impose a restriction on school boards that they would never consider putting on themselves. Another example: we are only 3 days away from the legal deadline for passing the school budget, and we still don't know what our state appropriation will be, because the state hasn't passed it's budget - but school boards were required to make key budget decisions based on that six months ago!

The vote was 33-17.