Craig Dawkins .....Liberty Thoughts

LEGISLATOR IS MILITANTLY MISGUIDED TO BROAD-BRUSH ALL OF OKLAHOMA HIGHER ED By Craig Dawkins Owasso State Representative David Derby-R, offered quite a rebuke of Oklahoma’s higher education leaders saying, “It’s obvious to anyone that pays attention that our colleges and universities waste far too much money on worthless classes, don’t require highly paid faculty to put in much effort, employ far too many non-teaching staff and operate at an efficiency level that would make any bureaucrat blush.” The problem with what Derby proclaimed in his press release is that he paints with too broad a brush, as if every college is the same as the two research universities in the state of Oklahoma. What he misses in his screed against the two Big 12 Conference schools is that there are other colleges where faculty and staff have a completely different set of resources, work conditions, and mission. For example, let’s consider community colleges. The central mission of community colleges is t...

"MORE EFFICIENT TAX SYSTEMS LEAD TO BIGGER GOVERNMENT"  There has been too much emphasis and focus on increasing taxes among government users of public tax dollars and their advocates. Before any increases in taxes are passed into law, there needs to be more focus on how to limit spending increases by governmental entities.  A close review of payrolls by department would be a great starting point of inquiry, in terms of where payroll dollars are allocated in comparison to the central mission of an agency of the government. For example, the central mission of education should be support of facilities (classrooms), students, and qualified faculty. But how do colleges, universities, and school districts allocate their payroll resources? This should be audited and reported to the public so that pleas of "we need more money" can be seen with more transparency.   One of the problems associated with agencies is that they grow in areas that are not central to the mi...