In late August, the Lebanon Daily News reported on a curious story about how the Lebanon School District (LSD), in what would appear to be a desperate effort to re-secure funding for the ill-fated Polaris School, had recruited estate senator David J. “Chip” Brightbill to lobby Governor Ed Rendell to reinstate financing for the alternative education program.  Brightbill is now a lobbyist with the law firm Stevens & Lee.

Following are excerpts of the Lebanon Daily News (LDNews) story of August 22 (the LDNews deletes all online articles after a week):

Brightbill, along with district Superintendent Marianne Bartley and school-board President Debra Bowman met last week with Gov. Ed Rendell to discuss restoring funds to the district's alternative-education school, Polaris, which lost its funding in one of the final spending cuts before passage of this year's $27.2 billion state budget. 

Now that Brightbill has opened the door to the governor's office, the school board on Monday night hired the law firm of Stephens & Lee — where Brightbill works as a counsel on government affairs — on a monthly retainer of $10,000 to continue the fight for Polaris funding. The agreement calls for the firm to work on behalf of the district until November 2008, but it can be terminated by either side on a month's notice...

Initially, Brightbill arranged a three-year, $9 million grant for Polaris. That was increased to $5 million annually in 2006, with the intention of opening the school to other districts in the county. It is the extra money budgeted for that unfulfilled plan which is keeping the school afloat this year, Bartley said. However, more than half a dozen employees, including five counselors, had to be let go, she said. 
Bartley is hoping that, with Brightbill's help, funding for the school will not only be restored for next year but for years to come...

Bartley said the school district's association with Brightbill has already paid off because he arranged the meeting with Rendell. Also involved in the meeting, via speaker phone, was Gerald Zahorchak, the state's secretary of education. A follow-up meeting with Zahorchak is scheduled for today, she said. 

[State Senator Mike] Folmer was not informed of the meeting, Bartley said, but has been supportive of restoring funding to Polaris, as has state Rep. Mauree Gingrich, whose district includes Lebanon. 

To begin with, how can the school district reasonably expect our elected officials in the state legislature to do their job – including determining the proper expenditure of taxpayer money - when they are hiring law firms to act as lobbyists for their special interests? 

Heck, isn't this use of a lobbyist in such a blatantly anti-republican manner undermining the very nature of our representative form of government?  After all, wasn't Brightbill fired by the people of the very district now paying him big bucks to bypass the legislative process?  And what should the children in the LSD glean from this, that the proper political process can be circumvented if you have enough money (taxpayer money, at that) to hire a lobbyist?  If that's the case, then why bother with civics lessons in school; if they need to cut staff, the LSD has just demonstrated that they history teachers can be the first to go.

And while district Superintendent Marianne Bartley and school-board President Debra Bowman may hold out high hopes of seeing a big return for the $10,000 a month in taxpayer money, doesn't anyone else find it odd that the school district is willing to spend at least $120,000 a year on an effort that may or may not pay off?  How is that a responsible use of tax money?  Indeed, would it not have been better spent helping the students in the school district instead of being used to line the pockets of a rich lawyer and lobbyist?  In fact, if they have $120,000 a year to blow (and we don't know how many years they will be using Brightbill), then is it possible that the LSD is not in as tough financial straights as they claim?  Or is this decision just a general indication of financial mismanagement throughout the school district?  After all, If they have blown the budget on this line item, then what other 'important' expenditures have been screwed up?

But the superintendent and school-board president are not the only ones who should be held to account for this mismanagement of public money; the whole LSD school board should be tossed out on their collective ears.  After all, they had to approve the $10,000 per month expenditure - and expenditure for which there is no guarantee of a return.  At least if they had authorized the purchase of pencils, the school district would have writing instruments in inventory.

Another question one must ask is whether it was really the prestige of an ex-legislator that opened the door of a liberal Democrat governor - the same governor who conspired with Brightbill to raise our taxes, overspend state dollars, and jump his own salary – or if it was their mutual acquaintances at the law firm of Stevens and Lee?  After all, haven't attorneys for Stevens & Lee been putting money into "shadow" PACs (political action committees which have high sounding names but are financed by one individual or an exclusive group of people) that have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to political candidates throughout the state over the years?  Isn't it more likely that the real reason Rendell opened the door to Brightbill not because of any perceived clout (remember, Brightbill lost the primary by a margin of two-to-one) but because both Republicans and Democrats are indebted to the financial aid they receive via PACs financed exclusively by lawyers or their personal relations from Stevens & Lee?

And for all of the money Stevens & Lee's counselors donate to political campaigns through their "shadow" PACs, doesn't that beg the question: What do they want?  Do these lobbyists merely want access, or is there something more grandiose lurking in the background?

So many questions, so few answers.

And yet one irony remains: according to the newspaper story the school district was supposed to have a follow up meeting with the state's Secretary of Education on August 22 as a direct consequence of Brightbill's intervention - but the LDNews has not run anything further on the matter, and a Google search has turned up nothing.

Kinda curious, ain't it?

####