“When school districts start firing assistant football coaches, that’s a lean budget”

Texas State Senator Dan Patrick said in February 2011, “As the old saying goes, when I start seeing districts firing assistant football coaches, then I’ll really know that they’ll have a lean budget.” It’s not clear that this is an “old saying,” but Texas has a tradition of school football. Cuts to Texas school football programs indicate serious school district budget problems.
 
     
Wikipedia: Dan Patrick (Texas politician)
Dan Patrick (born Daniel Scott Goeb, 4 April 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland) is a Texas State Senator, broadcaster, author, film producer and conservative radio talk show host on KSEV 700 AM in Houston and on KVCE 1160 AM in Dallas.
 
New York (NY) Times
The Texas Tribune
Nonteachers’ School Pay Under Scrutiny
By MORGAN SMITH
Published: February 24, 2011
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State Senator Dan Patrick, Republican of Houston and the vice chairman of the Senate Education Committee, called the 58,575 people employed in nonteaching support positions by Texas public schools — “your math department supervisors, your curriculum experts” — a soft target for budget cutters.
(...)
Still, Mr. Patrick cites a staggering statistic — Texas school districts are the fifth largest employers in the world — to suggest that there is plenty of opportunity for slimming down.
 
“As the old saying goes,” he said, “when I start seeing districts firing assistant football coaches, then I’ll really know that they’ll have a lean budget.”