Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Longtime Gloucester resident Chuck Davis has it right in his March 25 letter declaring “This is the best BOS we’ve ever had.” But there’s more that needs telling. In January at a joint Gloucester School Board/Board of Supervisors meeting, I made public comments on some studies that need to be repeated in light of the current stalemate created by a school board annual budget that is simply too larded up.

Back in February 2013, a highly respected think tank founded by Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman published a study titled “The School Staffing Surge.” It concerns the growth of staff in public schools throughout the U.S. between 1992 and 2009. They found that public schools in 21 states employed more deputy superintendents, accountants, human resources personnel, assistant coaches, nurses, assistant principals, school bus drivers, librarians, cafeteria workers, and other non-teaching personnel than they do class...