The Reading School Board pulled a proposed travel-budget increase from Wednesday's agenda, then voted against adding a proposal to consider a two-year travel pause. The increase wasn't approved or rejected. The pause didn't get as far as consideration. Everybody stayed in the meeting long enough to decide which conversations weren't going anywhere.

Spotlight PA reports roughly $102,000 in board travel over two school years, including a $39,000 second-year total from an unaudited breakdown. The two travel budgets together came to less than $24,000. Exceeding them wasn't illegal.

But at that distance from actual spending, the budget is less a plan than a pen pal. Dear $12,000: We've arrived safely at $63,000. The weather is lovely. Wish you were relevant.

Board President Noahleen Betts had proposed raising the allowance to $95,000 for this year or next, saying the existing amount wasn't enough for members' permitted professional-development opportunities. The current budget is $12,733; the district estimated $75,000 in spending.

I admire the precision of $12,733. Not $12,000, not $13,000. Someone went all the way down to the final thirty-three dollars before the estimated spending climbed into a different vehicle and drove away.

Perhaps the budget needs professional development. Send it to a conference where it can learn to stand up for itself. Give it a lanyard: HELLO, MY NAME IS SUPPOSED TO MEAN SOMETHING.

No, don't actually send the fucking budget anywhere. WE HAVE ALREADY ESTABLISHED THAT TRAVEL IS THE PROBLEM WE'RE DISCUSSING.

The Daily Heckler: five or six selected stories.
Political satire for your morning inbox.

The educational defense isn't imaginary. Member Shaykayarira DelRio-Gonzalez cited ideas for housing unhoused students and senior property-tax relief, as well as opportunities to advocate for funding. Residents generally supported professional development. They wanted clearer spending information and presentations about what members learned.

That's not an angry mob demanding the destruction of knowledge. That's the assignment every kid gets after a field trip: tell us what you saw. If the knowledge can make it from California to Pennsylvania, surely it can manage the last few feet to the public microphone.

Betts and Vice President Paige Brookins referred questions about the withdrawn increase and the pause vote to the board's attorney. He had no additional information.

I have reached the adult at the end of the phone tree. The adult doesn't know either. I'll sit here with my little question about the money until somebody gets back from learning how to govern.

And there's a final souvenir. The detailed budget breakdown was attached to the item proposing the increase. When the item left the agenda, the document left the website with it. That doesn't establish a plot to hide it. It's what happened to the attachment.

But—you're telling me the public came asking to see the spending, and the paperwork needed an agenda item to chaperone it? THE NUMBERS CAN'T STAY OUT BY THEMSELVES?

Leave the breakdown on the website. Let the taxpayers take the educational trip for once. It won't even require a hotel.