Need to be in a private club? Don't pay dues with our money.

How nice for Norfolk's school superintendent.

While many of his students are eating free and reduced lunches, their parents hitting up charities for school supplies and some of his teachers struggling to pay their bills, Richard Bentley can enjoy Thursday Lobster Nights in a private, glass-enclosed dining room with breathtaking views of the Elizabeth River, thanks to a membership at the Town Point Club paid for by taxpayers. (Bentley must pay for his own food if he's there for pleasure, but the membership itself was a gift.)

I know, I know. The $1,300-a-year Town Point Club was part of the benefits package the School Board assembled to lure him to Norfolk from El Paso, Texas.

Shame on them for offering it.

Perks for public employees should never include private club memberships.

Last week we learned that a handful of city employees in Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Chesapeake had private club memberships, courtesy of taxpayers. The most glaring was at the Beach, where the economic development director belongs to the Cavalier Golf & Yacht Club, with its $18,000 initiation fee and $400 monthly dues - courtesy of the public.

Unrepentant city honchos defended this wanton waste of money by insisting that important city business can best be conducted in exclusive clubs.

So let's at least give Norfolk's School Board points for candor.

When he was contacted by Pilot reporter Steven Vegh, board Chairman Kirk Houston didn't try to spin Bentley's membership as anything but an attractive layer of icing on a benefits cake.

"I simply saw it as a perk of the job," Houston said. "I truly think that when you hire persons at that level of responsibility, that you want to try to get some of the best in the business and want to offer them attractive packages."

When I caught up with him Monday, Houston said board members would be discussing the membership with the superintendent to determine whether it's something they want to pay for in future years.

Makes you wonder why they didn't rethink this expenditure before it hit the newspaper.

At a time when the school district was freezing wages, eliminating jobs and cutting its budget to the bone, the board had no business tossing a private club membership into a new employee contract.

This has been going on for years.

When I talked with Bentley on Monday, he pointed out that his predecessors, Stephen C. Jones and John O. Simpson, were both given memberships at Town Point.

"I didn't ask for it. I didn't even know what the Town Point Club was," Bentley said of its inclusion in his contract. "I thought, 'Well, OK, if it's there.' "

Here's the odd thing about the membership: Bentley said that when he was negotiating the terms of his employment, he asked whether the district would be paying for his personal membership in professional organizations.

The answer was no.

So Bentley now springs for his own dues in the American Association of School Administrators, at a cost of about $500.

Think about it. The same board that won't pay dues to organizations that would presumably aid an educator's performance is happy to stroke a check for a private social club that serves $32 filet mignon and $25 crab cakes.

Looks like a case of misplaced priorities.

Here's a question for all public employees who let taxpayers buy them private club memberships:

Did it ever occur to you to just say no?

Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net