Man, it’s a busy time for the North Kitsap School District right now. Not only are they knee-deep in a painful process called budget time, they’re also dealing with a mess of a public relations fiasco in the North vs. Kingston battle over practice fields and the lack of stadium lights at Kingston.

First up, the budget. At task is cutting goods and services to meet a projected $1.3 million shortfall in the upcoming fiscal year.

The district is asking for public input on how best to make those cuts while keeping the impact on the classrooms at a minimum.

About 60 community members turned out for a public meeting on Wednesday night to opine finances. And we have a hunch they didn’t just show up to partake in the free cookies and coffee.

Enlisting the community’s help on such a huge scale to help deal with the budget crisis is ingenious. This is taking advantage of the thousands of unpaid consultants familiar with the innerworkings of the district; some of whom have years of knowledge to share. Good call.

Now for the rest of the story — the lack of equality in athletics for North and Kingston high schools.

The fact is, we’re two years into Kingston High’s existance and the playing field, as they say, is not level. Not even close.

The NKSD school board has been putting off a real decision on this since the new high school was a sparkle in the district’s eye. They knew that, in modern-day math terms, one high school plus one high school is equal to either twice the practice facilities or equal time amongst the existing facilities.

That they’ve allowed it to go on this long is just ridiculous.

Either add Kingston’s Bucanneering presence to the North Kitsap Stadium or support the community’s effort to get stadium lights. There. Was that so hard?