Uh oh, New Paltz School District hires another consultant

I love the consultant thing. It's the CYA dream come true. But it's the bureaucratic newspeak that announces the hiring that really caught my attention:

“What they have proposed that they will be doing is to complete the state Education Department’s building survey and five-year plan,” she said. “But we asked them to do a more in-depth study so that we have a serious needs assessment of all of our facilities, fields, the whole footprint of the school district. We also asked them to engage the community and every stakeholder group in order to have a clear understanding of the vision, expectations and hopes in regards to facilities use and the culture of the community.”

In-depth studies, serious needs assessments, whole footprints, engaging the community, engaging every stakeholder group, the vision, the expectations, the hopes, the culture of the community.

And, of course, there is nothing like the phrase "five-year plan." I think of Stalin chewing on his pencil, adding a collective farm here, deleting a kulak there.

I hear the engine of another Rolls Royce turning over in the parking lot. The starting point, classically, is the State Education Department. That's like watching the shells being loaded into the shotgun. "But we asked them to do...more" is the new platinum calculator being lifted out of its box. And the "stakeholder groups," well, they never tire of spending other people's money.

This is going to be drinks, dinner, the opera, limo, more drinks, after hours club -- just my modest guess that it will be a $30 million night on the town.

They never give up. Ever. Never ever.

With the usual apologies to the metaphor police.