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Lubbock ISD gets into the pharmacy biz, competes with taxpaying firms

Listener: Burley
Category: Education Related
Date: 03 Feb 2010
Time: 15:32:24 -0700
Remote Name: 66.140.104.223

Comments

Dear Robert,

You have probably seen in this morning's AJ the Lubbock Independent School District is going to get into the pharmacy business for the benefit of its employees. Mrs. Garza said this pharmacy would sell over the counter items as well. You and I share the opinion that tax dollars should not be used to establish a business to compete with private business.

If the school district is going to put in a pharmacy, why not put in a grocery store, a gas fueling island or maybe a restaurant? What is the difference? Where would it end? It would make about as much sense to put in one of these other businesses as it would be to put in a pharmacy.

Off the cuff, I don’t think an LISD pharmacy would be successful or meet expectations for the following reasons.

1. What advantage would they have when they are competing with Walmart, Target and Drug Emporium who offer hundreds of prescriptions for $4.00 for a thirty day supply of pills or about $10.00 for a ninety day supply of pills.
2. I think the proposed location is so far away from where most school employees work or live that they will not want to go there.
3. I seriously doubt that all the true cost or savings have been taken into account.

I asked Mr. Berhl Robertson if they had done a pro-forma business plan like a private business would do. He said, “not as such,” but they used projections based on the experience of Mesquite ISD using the same plan.

I don’t know why but the first thing to jump into my mind was the City of Lubbock using the projections from other cities using red light cameras as a basis for adopting them in Lubbock. That did not work out so well.

I have lots of other questions about this deal but time does not allow me to get into them now.

Burley

Pratt responds:

The entire thing, from top to bottom, is deplorable and should be stopped immediately. I call on all pharmacies to withhold their property tax payments. I want LISD to get into the copier business, cold storage business and every other business in which board members engage.

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