While no one believes the county school board to be cutting edge, we were surprised to learn just how backward and wasteful it really can be. The Brevard County School Board operates two facilities on State Road 520 in Cocoa (in the school bus depot) that sells surplus text books and fixtures. This is how the county school system offloads excess items for which they no longer have a need. The textbook facility is open five days a week (from 8am to 3pm) and the larger surplus warehouse, which contains surplus desks, chairs, and electronics, is open on Mondays and Thursdays. At least, that’s when they are supposed to be open.

We had heard that there was a hiring freeze and that staff was making cuts. Not in next year’s budget, but in this year’s budget after it had already been approved. Turns out the rumors seem to be right. Turns out as well that you, the Brevard County taxpayer, won’t be receiving a refund on your property taxes this year, even if the school board decides retroactively to cut services.

Case in point: On Thursday, October 18, this citizen was met with the following hand-written sign on the locked door of the textbook bay: “Closed Today Oct 1″. After a moment, he discovered the regular sign behind it with the correct operating hours. In speaking to the Supervisor of Warehousing, Sandy Kimble, she explained that although she worked on the premises daily, she hadn’t noticed the sign before. When concern was expressed over whether or not any proper supervision of employees was being done at the Cocoa location, she commented, “I didn’t read the sign the same way you did”. One truly wonders.

Ms. Kimble went on to say that the reason that the textbook facility was closed that day (that day being October 18 in case you are confused), was because her staff was constantly behind and couldn’t handle the workload that the county had assigned her. She said that her staff was constantly on call because of hazardous situations and their concern for “student safety” which was primary over staffing a set number of hours at the warehouse. Thus, if a hazardous item is found at a school, say a rusty desk (her actual example), they immediately sweep into the school to remove the item before a student could get hurt. She stated this very seriously as if she was running a SWAT team.

She particularly blamed Central Middle School for having five bomb threats. Although we aren’t big followers of the local newspaper here, she emphatically stated that there had been “at least” five bomb threats at that one school alone just since the beginning of the year. Whether true or not, when asked how a bomb threat contributed to her staff being behind, she explained that her staff is on call to supply students with water coolers whenever there is a bomb scare. The students are stuck out on the fields without water and could dehydrate if her staff wasn’t charged with keeping them well-supplied with fresh water. Also, sometimes her staff also gets stuck in a school during a bomb threat and they are then prohibited from leaving until the bomb scare is over. She estimated that each bomb scare costs her staff two hours of time per staff member.

Thus, she made the decision to shutdown the warehouse facility to play “catch up” with all the internal work they had to do. Of course, there is no telling how often this actually happens as there seems to be no public record of facility openings. She also said that they will be reducing the hours of the warehouse facility to only the 1st and 3rd Mondays of each month (further reducing available hours to the public to 25% of their previous minimal provisions). She also said that the situation is in such flux that she recommended that interested parties always check their website which they “try” to keep up to date with the correct hours.

When asked how long it would be before the sign on the warehouse facility changed, she said that a new sign had been on order for some time and should arrive any day. One wonders, after seeing the old sign, how much effort was put into the new one that it should take so long. She also stated she would rush over to the textbook facility that day to update the handwritten sign to avoid “further confusion”.

This is why it is probably best for the County to mandate that the entire operation be offloaded to a private company. There can be no way that the county is making money with this operation. The extra staff are just collecting paychecks, adding risk to the county’s insurance plan, and performing a duty so inefficiently at times, that even the most backward of private companies would excel beyond measure in comparison. It’s time for Brevard to move forward, be frugal, and cut waste.