Listen to “Harrison Board Saw the Train and Refused to Move” on Spreaker.
Imagine knowing a train is only a few miles away.
You cannot see it yet, but the people who monitor the tracks tell you it’s coming — and coming fast.
Then, amazingly, you step from safety onto the rail.
You have deliberately moved yourself from safety into harm’s way.
Onlookers stare in disbelief. They tell you to move. To reverse course. To get off the tracks.
But you refuse.
Then the train appears, and the question is no longer in doubt. It’s visible now, bearing down by the second.
At the last moment, someone grabs you and pulls you from the train’s path.
And instead of being grateful, you fight them. Screaming. Kicking. Struggling to get loose.
They hold you down until the train passes.
Then, once the danger is gone, they let you up. Calm and unscathed, you walk away as though nothing happened.
That is not unlike the behavior of the Harrison County Board of Education.
The school system had 239 positions above the state funding formula, while its excess levy could cover only about 150 of them.
They were warned the train was coming.
Rather than live within its means, the system drew down roughly $16 million in reserves — essentially using the savings account to fund ongoing employment without a real plan to replace those dollars.
That is not budgeting. That is a self-prescribed poison pill, leaving the system vulnerable to financial failure.
Wednesday, the State Board of Education pulled Harrison County’s board from the tracks.
Odds are, the local board — still in place despite this dereliction — will get up after the train passes and act like nothing happened.
The real shock is this: the problem was likely not a failure to recognize danger.
It was a refusal to act on it.
Not irrational, but calculated. A situation where fiscal responsibility collided with local politics, and politics won — kicking and screaming documented in actions defiant of sound financial judgement.
Better to let the State Board take action than make the hard decisions locally. Said another way, they knew the state would pull them from the tracks.
Given the facts outlined during Wednesday’s State Board meeting, that is the only conclusion that makes much sense.
The voters of Harrison County should remember this inaction — this failure — the next time these board members appear on the ballot.