The recently announced budget reductions for the Harlan County Schools is nothing new to the district and shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

In this space over the past year or so, we have talked about how we must all learn to do more with less. That statement rings true more than ever today as our state and federal legislators continue to stall on funding education adequately.

Various education groups sponsored a campaign once that simply informed us that “Education is Kentucky’s Best Investment.” We continue to hear of unfunded mandates from the state and federal government from educators across the state. The pressure is fierce and the penalties are tremendous. It was stated at a recent meeting that textbooks are literally falling apart because of the age and wear and tear over the years and no new money is allotted for them from the state.

In the southeastern corner of the state, the funding gets more complicated due to the continued declining enrollment. While you may or may not agree with him on various issues, Superintendent Tim Saylor has done a good job pushing the message that the population is dwindling in his school district and that drastic measures have and will continue to be necessary.

Now, with that said, the school district must do a better job in planning for the pitfalls of budgeting. By this we simply mean that we have to be careful creating jobs. Our community is in trouble when it comes to employment opportunities. We have to make sure that those entering the education profession realize there probably won’t be many jobs here for them in the future.

We challenge the Board of Education to closely research and publicly discuss jobs created in the future. This will only add more credibility to the process and at the same time will reduce public criticism during tough economic times like these.