It would be easy to roast Hamilton County for refusing to fund early childhood education in Alton Park.
Way easy.
Maybe too easy.
The Creative Discovery Museum approached Mayor Jim Coppinger months ago, asking for $500,000 to help open a learning center for infants, toddlers and children from the St. Elmo and Alton Park communities. The museum would renovate part of Calvin Donaldson Elementary into a center of best-practices learning -- including a school-based health clinic -- that museum officials say would be the first of its kind in America.
Coppinger said he couldn't.
"This is not money that was budgeted," he said. "The money we're going to commit is for primary and secondary education, not childhood education."
First, there is money. Like Smaug, the county sits on piles of it. More than $110 million in reserves. Their current budget? Just under $673 million.
"A lot of that money comes from state or federal governments that goes through our budget. It's not really county dollars. About $200 million of that is county dollars," Coppinger said.
OK, $200 million. The museum asked for a one-time allocation of $500,000 -- or 1/400th of the county's $200 million -- which would then draw down matching gifts of $750,000. The city's in with $500,000. Local foundations are in. An anonymous donor is in.
But not Hamilton County.
"This is not money that was budgeted," Coppinger said. "It's not money we counted on spending."
Fair enough.
But what about in 2016?
Early childhood education is the bee's knees. For every $1 spent on early ed, another $8.60 comes back in long-term benefits later in life, the White House reports. It can reduce achievement gaps. Increases earning power later in life. Helps working parents. It is proactive and anti-poverty.
To be serious about secondary education is to be serious about early childhood education, which is an act of love, investment and blessing in the lives of kids, especially those living in poverty.
"I absolutely support early childhood development," said schools superintendent Rick Smith. "I have worked with the Creative Discovery Museum and applaud them. They are not wanting to do a day care but a true educational learning center for children starting almost at birth."
You'd think Smith would just fund it in the school system's budget, right? He can't.
"Federal law," Smith said. "We can fund pre-k, but we can't fund early childhood education."
That leaves it on the doorstep of the county, where three things can happen.
First, nobody does anything. Coppinger doesn't include it in his 2016 budget, the commission doesn't press him to, and the idea withers away, gone for good.
Second, Coppinger includes the $500,000 in his budget, which commissioners can't line-item veto. But would he do that without knowing he had enough commission support?
That brings us to the third option: The County Commission.
Someone on the nine-member commission steps forward and introduces this idea as a real, serious and public topic for discussion.
"I think about it every week. How can we get this thing funded?" said Commissioner Tim Boyd. "But we've got to expand the purpose and mission of the whole facility."
Boyd is the chairman of the commission's education committee; he wants a big discussion at a big table with everybody present: The schools, the museum, the county, the foundations.
Who will own the building? Who carries the insurance? Can the idea include more literacy programs for more people, including evenings and weekends?
These are valid questions. And nebulous blame does nothing to answer them.
In this Hamilton County standoff, someone needs to blink first -- either the mayor or the commission -- so that a good and meaningful idea doesn't die to politics.
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCook TFP.