By Juan Montoya
Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to b
e conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them… - (Orwell, New American Library, 1981, p35)
Move over Double-Speak. We now have Fuller-Speak and Long-Speak.
You know Tony. He's the current Chief Financial Office with the Brownsville Independent School District.
Long refers to Gary Long, the education writer with the Brownsville Herald.
On Monday, the Brownsville Herald published a 50-inch screed that spilled over from a front-page banner headline story onto more than a quarter page on Page 9 with Fuller doing mental gymnastics trying to prove that if you have more expenditures than you have revenues, you can't call that a deficit.
Instead, it's called "amounts BISD designated for use from fund balances in each year's budget."
OK.
Let's get this straight.
In 2008-2009, BISD "designated for use from fund balances" $26.542 million.
In 2009-2010, BISD "designated for use from fund balances" $11.436 million.
In 2010-2011, BISD "designated for use from fund balances" $6.511 million.
Now, if you in your household economy were to operate in this fashion, you would have a "shortfall," a "liquidity problem," etc., but heaven forbid that you would call it a household "deficit."
Gary Long, Fuller, Rick Zayas and Ruben Cortez seem to think that by dipping into reserves for the third straight year and spending more than the district takes in is perfectly OK, as long as there is water in the well.
Fuller says that it's "incorrect" to characterize the figures as deficits "because by law BISD must operate under a balanced budget. Each year, revenues must match expenditures, so there can be no 'deficit spending.'"
Voila, just like that deficits are gone.
Fuller said BISD needs to learn to live within its means, and is hopeful that in the coming years it will use less fund-balance money to balance the budget and not have a "deficit."
Long, confronted by trustee Catalina Presas-Garcia in the newsroom, rose to his full 55-inch height and puffed up like a peacock saying in the best Woodward-Bernstein voice: "I stand by my story."
Somewhere, Long forgot that the duty of a newspaper is to inform and educate, not to pass along the mindless drivel that Fuller and other bureaucrats pass off as truth.
A spade is a spade is a spade is a spade.
Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to b
e conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them… - (Orwell, New American Library, 1981, p35)Move over Double-Speak. We now have Fuller-Speak and Long-Speak.
You know Tony. He's the current Chief Financial Office with the Brownsville Independent School District.
Long refers to Gary Long, the education writer with the Brownsville Herald.
On Monday, the Brownsville Herald published a 50-inch screed that spilled over from a front-page banner headline story onto more than a quarter page on Page 9 with Fuller doing mental gymnastics trying to prove that if you have more expenditures than you have revenues, you can't call that a deficit.
Instead, it's called "amounts BISD designated for use from fund balances in each year's budget."
OK.
Let's get this straight.
In 2008-2009, BISD "designated for use from fund balances" $26.542 million.
In 2009-2010, BISD "designated for use from fund balances" $11.436 million.
In 2010-2011, BISD "designated for use from fund balances" $6.511 million.
Now, if you in your household economy were to operate in this fashion, you would have a "shortfall," a "liquidity problem," etc., but heaven forbid that you would call it a household "deficit."
Gary Long, Fuller, Rick Zayas and Ruben Cortez seem to think that by dipping into reserves for the third straight year and spending more than the district takes in is perfectly OK, as long as there is water in the well.
Fuller says that it's "incorrect" to characterize the figures as deficits "because by law BISD must operate under a balanced budget. Each year, revenues must match expenditures, so there can be no 'deficit spending.'"
Voila, just like that deficits are gone.
Fuller said BISD needs to learn to live within its means, and is hopeful that in the coming years it will use less fund-balance money to balance the budget and not have a "deficit."
Long, confronted by trustee Catalina Presas-Garcia in the newsroom, rose to his full 55-inch height and puffed up like a peacock saying in the best Woodward-Bernstein voice: "I stand by my story."
Somewhere, Long forgot that the duty of a newspaper is to inform and educate, not to pass along the mindless drivel that Fuller and other bureaucrats pass off as truth.
A spade is a spade is a spade is a spade.
11 comments:
The Herald once again crossed that line in journalism ethics with the headline FINANCES MISREPRESENTED as though the paper were the final arbiter of what is the truth. In essence, it said whatever information was in the controversial ad was A LIE. The newspaper, unless it hired top notch journalism, cannot make that assertion because it does not know. All it knows is that BISD is making those claims. When a newspaper starts taking sides, it loses its value and credibility. And with that headline, it basically said that either they were threatened with a lawsuit by BISD and that's why they were cowed into siding with BISD or it is so woefully incompetent that it believes whatever BISD told them is the truth. The heaqdline should have read: BISD says finances misrepresented. We can already hear the herald editors crying that there was a smaller headline that stated it was BISD's claim, BUT it was separated and much smaller and did not convey the impact as those two huge words. Readers usually will just capture the headlines and then maybe scan at the rest of the crap the newspaper pushes as journalism. And then they wonder why readers are heading for the blogs. At least here we know where Montoya stands.
Yours truly, MVV
Long cannot retract the story as it would be admitting his intellectual shortcomings.
How difficult would it have been for the editor to assigned the story to the business reporter with an understanding of accounting 101? Does the Brownsville Herald even have a business reporter?
Fuller is full of it. Obviously he can't tell his left from his right.
If you spend more than you make, you will have a shortage or deficit. Let's educate them too while we are at it. It is also called "living beyond your means". How much simpler can I put it??????
All of the Trustees at BISD are schooled in "doublespeak"....the political language used to talk down to the general public....as if all were stupid. Ahumada is a master at "doublespeak" and "bullshitspeak" and other elected officials seem schooled in these techniques. Teaching "doublespeak" and "bullshitspeak" seems to be part of the training program offered by the Cameron County Democratic Party....the Dumbokrats as some say. As another blogger has said, "Here in Cameron County and Brownsville, we don't just accept corruption, we demand it." Why are so many willing to accept corruption....because many aspire to those positions so they can get their fingers into the honeypot. The Herald sees itself as the guardian of the honeypot...and their benefit is any honey that might fall over the edge...or honey given to them by the corrupt officials. When "Brownsville Herald" and "Journalism" are in the same sentence, it is surely an oxymoron.....there is no "journalism" practiced at the Herald...just selling ads to give us yesterdays news today.
Great job Brownsville Herald for exposing the PAC.
great job Brownsville Herald for recognizing that there are two sides to a story a response from the PAC has been prepared and will appear of Friday.
Bottom line Fuller is lying BIG TIME.
It is my understanding that they will be calling for his resignation.
You ignorant person, the PAC is defending our tax dollars and exposing the truth of what zayas and cortez are all about. They are robbing you right under your nose but you are too dumb to know it. How pathetic you are.
Gary, don't be a chicken s**, safe your integrity what little you have. zayas and his clan will soon be powerless and history.
"Powerless and History" not if you keep attacking them and having people feel sorry for them. You have NO IDEA how many pitty votes they have gotten thanks to the PAC. They would have surely lost if the PAC had kept the attacks to themselves, now the PAC can be thanked for getting them re-elected.
VOTE!
The only way that ZayCor win is the Ernie Way (buying the votes).
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