Durham schools superintendent Dr. Eric Becoats recently was caught using a school system activity bus for personal use. He claimed he had reimbursed the system for the use of the bus, and he also claimed he had no idea that personal use of the bus was against any kind of rule or regulation.
Any public servant should be aware that taking advantage of any public resource for personal use is inappropriate. If he is not, he is in the wrong business. But it gets worse. Now we learn that Becoats knew some time ago that policies prevented the use of public resources, like activity buses, for personal use. He had even turned down a request for such use by a non-school group.
Think about it. 1) Becoats knew of the policy. 2) He rightly enforced the policy when asked by an outside group for permission to use an activity bus for non-school purposes. 3) When circumstances created a need for him, personally, to use a bus for non-school purposes, however, he went ahead and did it. 4) When caught, he lied, as subsequent emails showed, about knowing of any policy forbidding such use.
This is not a record to be proud of. There’s a basic character flaw in any person who feels that rules apply to others but not to him. There is far too much of this in government these days. Just look at the White House.
