EDITORIAL

leadership of other nonprofits are getting the message.

City, county and court officials appoint members to any number of nonprofit boards. All are intended to serve or improve the community and many have comparably high salaries and lush expense accounts.

That’s not to say that professionals in poverty-fighting organizations should be expected to live in poverty themselves. But to use public money, intended for alleviating poverty, to finance a steady diet of “destination” conference outings and wining and dining at the highest levels is tone-deaf in the extreme.

Columbus Board of Education members also have displayed a weakness for questionable travel. One difference, however, is that someone often questions it. Member Eric Brown and former member Mary Jo Hudson clashed numerous times with board President Gary L. Baker and other members, especially W. Shawna Gibbs, over the use of taxpayer-funded travel.

Hudson quit the board in December out of frustration with Baker’s leadership, but Brown continues to challenge inappropriate travel. A prime example is an upcoming $10,000 trip by four members to a National School Boards Association conference in Miami in September. The problem with it is that Baker and Gibbs plan to attend even though both will be leaving the board in December.

CMHA officials make the argument that the lavish dinners, travel and gifts for employees constitute a tiny fraction of the agency’s budget, and schoolboard members could say the same about their travel.

But that’s irrelevant. Controlling a large budget funded by taxpayers doesn’t give anyone license to waste even a little bit of it on things that are unnecessary or excessive.

Only voters ultimately have authority over school board members; we hope that when they fill four seats this November, they’ll choose candidates who pledge to approach travel and other perks with restraint.

As for CMHA officials and board members, the mayor, county commissioners and judges who appoint them owe it to the public to make clear that they can justify their salaries better with hard work and humility and by avoiding extravagant spending.