I'm not a cold, heartless beast who wants innocent, poor children to starve. You may not think so after this piece, but I assure you that I'm actually a really nice guy.
Last week there was a briefly-aired piece on television highlighting a lady in Denver named Della Curry. Della Curry worked in an elementary school near Denver, Colorado until she was fired for giving free meals away to students who did not qualify for the Federal school lunch program.
You can read the CNN version of the story, which is relatively non-threatening to the school district, and which also noted that their policy provides for some modest capacity to cover children who have no lunches. Apparently Miss Curry had repeatedly provided school food on her own initiative, a few times too often, and she was eventually fired, giving her the opportunity to tell her tragic story on ABC's morning show and presumably elsewhere.
According to the article, she said sometimes students simply forget their lunch money and noted
that, on occasion she even went into her own pocket to pay for lunches. Let's not forget that.
Now, Della Curry sounds like a nice lady. She did a nice thing when she paid for kids' lunches when they forgot them. I would be perfectly happy to have Della Curry live next door to me. But the suitability of her actions deserves a tad more scrutiny which, since no one else will offer and write it, I will. There are two sides to everything, so yell at me, I can take it.
The existence of an itemized deduction for charitable contributions on our tax returns exemplifies a principle of charity -- government allows you, the taxpayer, to decide what charitable cause you donate to, and grant you a tax deduction as long as it is certified as an actual charity by ... well OK, it was Lois Lerner, but you get the idea.
Granted, there are organized giveaways by the government -- heck, that's probably half the Federal budget -- but we don't send our tax dollars to Washington, or Cherry Creek, Colorado, with the expectation that individual, low-level government employees will decide on their own to spend them differently from what their legislatures have budgeted, and beyond their warranted authorization to do so.
So while the idea of Miss Curry buying lunches out of her own pocket to feed students was laudable and suitable, and certainly admirable, the admiration grinds to a screeching halt when the charitable act is satisfied with -- let's face it -- other people's money.
I'm not Grinching here, I'm really not. But it is not up to Della Curry to make those decisions. If she wants to give kids money out of her own pocket so they don't go hungry at lunch time, as I said, I salute her for that. But there is a program in place that the elected representatives of Cherry Creek, Colorado, as well as the state and Federal governments, put in to address that.
If Della Curry was seeing this sort of thing too often, the proper tack was not to take city assets and just give them out as she saw fit. She should have stood up in front of the principal, the superintendent of schools, the town fathers and mothers of Cherry Creek, Colorado, and the mayor, and asked them to authorize the cafeteria staff to provide for anomalous situations, or put in a procedure for them to get permission in each case. I'm quite certain it would be almost always granted and no one would go hungry.
See, here's the thing -- she knew what she was doing was improper (I hesitate to use the word "wrong"; we're talking hungry kids here). It was improper because it is inappropriate to take government assets and use them other than in the manner authorized, and she knew that. To her credit, she seems to be taking her punishment (firing) reasonably well.
At this point, you have to be asking why I even care enough to take what seems to be a terrible position on this. Well, this incident is a tiny, tiny example that can easily become a rationale for government workers all over to decide, a little at a time, to use the taxpayers' assets as they see fit. And when that government worker is not a kind-hearted cafeteria worker in Cherry Creek, Colorado, but, say, Barack Obama, well, your hand instinctively goes straight to covering your wallet.
Della Curry has said she will still try to get the local laws changed to make what she thought she had to do legal, and that's as it should be. She no longer has a job, well, that job. I'd like to think that she has gotten a new job or will soon. And I hope that the next time she has to make decisions regarding her employer's assets, she stays within her role and the decision power she is given.
Because we want our government employees to remember for whom they work. And it is for us.
Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."
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