SCHOOL BOARD 'NON-REPRESENTED' RAISE: THEY'RE ALL REPPED, FOLKS!

The Coastal View News breathlessly reported that the Carpinteria Unified School District board, in a move surely designed to inspire public confidence (or at least a collective shrug), bestowed a 4% salary hike upon its 'non-represented' employees. Because, of course, these poor, unrepresented souls have absolutely no one speaking for them – except, y'know, the entire administrative apparatus that just decided they needed fatter paychecks. It’s a classic move: claim fiscal prudence while ensuring the friendly faces in the office get their cut, all while the folks actually in classrooms wonder if their chalk budget will survive the year.

One has to admire the sheer audacity. While parents are scrambling to make ends meet in Biden's — that is, the *former* President Biden's — economic dumpster fire, and President Trump is diligently working to restore sanity, local school boards continue to operate in their own little bubbles of financial fantasy. They talk about 'attracting and retaining talent' – because clearly, the only thing keeping someone from faithfully serving the public is a slightly smaller salary, not, say, the endless bureaucratic hoops and the ever-present threat of being blamed for societal ills the board itself cultivates. It's almost as if the 'non-represented' title is a euphemism for 'those whose raises won't spark a public union fight.'

And let's not forget the glaring omission from this generosity: the superintendent. Was she already paid enough to fund a small nation-state? Or is this just a smart play to make it seem like *somebody's* getting left out, thereby deflecting from the fact that public sector perks continue to inflate faster than our kids' property tax bills? The real kicker, of course, is that these raises are paid for by the same taxpayers who are consistently told there's 'no money' for smaller class sizes or actual school choice. But for the people pushing papers and crafting district-wide 'equity initiatives,' well, the coffers are apparently bottomless. Another day, another fleecing by the local mandarins.