And now schools will be dirtier

Daniele Martini
In many public schools in Italy last year the parents are self-taxed to pay for the cleaning companies and to prevent their children spend their days in dirty classrooms and toilets that they used more disgusting than an alley. In some cases even pulled up their sleeves, they bought brooms and detergent, they cleaned the locals. To prevent the institutes to turn into slums, Piedmont and Veneto regions fill the cuts by drawing on state funds in their budgets.
This year, however, how hard parents and administrators can do, are unlikely to prevent what in a modern and civilized country is not even thinkable, and that is that many state schools, elementary, middle and high schools, are abandoned . If in 2009-2010, in fact, the reduction in the budget for cleaning school buildings was an average of 25 percent for 2011 firms and unions provide a lot more drastic cuts. The final figure of bloodletting is still there, even if the data circulated so far are more than alarming. Yesterday there was a meeting convened at the Ministry of Economy but was present not the Minister of Education, Mariastella Gelmini, but by a secretary, Joseph Pizza, as if the whole thing was not an important affair,an event in a negative way,: schools without cleaning. But the comparison showed that a few days ago the Ministry has started yet another move to further reduce the funding for 2010 and the discovery has boosted the suspects.
Faced with the cuts already made and repeated negative signals for 2011, the cleaning companies have already set in motion procedures to massive layoffs of employees, about 27 000 people, starting with the 15 000 former workers socially useful (lsu ) now given by companies. Since September many businesses are operating without the certainty of being paid and now, with a letter also signed by the unions, a document from the polite tone, but ultimately, the associations that represent them, namely the Confederation of Fise-Anip the Legacoop services and Confcooperative -Federlavoro, informed the Minister of Education who do not make more to maintain employment levels intact.
In recent months an employee has been paid to the layoffs notwithstanding, that is, with public funds that supplement the income lost because of state cuts. Cuts that, on balance, proved illusory, hoped that more effective in terms of savings on final balances. But the funds end in a month and a half and at the moment no one knows if there will be money to fund it again, especially if there are adequate state resources for the work reassigned. In short, thanks to the law of stability (the former Finance) and cuts horizontally, ie without going too much for the subtle but striking anywhere, without any selection criteria, there is a very real risk that many public schools are left to themselves.
Not only that: because many companies also perform cleaning services for the care and supervision is emerging even the possibility that in the coming weeks, many institutions remain barred in the morning because no one is going to open the door and then left the premises are at the mercy of anyone , at the mercy of vandals and unknown. Unacceptable in itself, the matter becomes outrageous when you consider that while the government says it does not have the money for state schools finds them for private ones (expecially catholic ones) and increase appropriations, rising from 150 million euro a year to about 250. Until the 2008-2009 season, the state spent on cleaning in schools around 600 million euro per year: 350 for contracts awarded to former employees and 250 million socially useful environment for those who are known as the "historical contracts" , entrusted with competitions at regional and concentrated in institutions of central and northern Italy. Contracts of the latter until a few years ago were managed by the municipalities and provinces and paid directly with money taken from their budgets. Then the local authorities gave up this task by returning to the state appropriations, which in turn pledged to transfer money to each school. For years the system has worked well, then head back the Berlusconi governmentwhich now does not hesitate to leave school buildings dry of money.