As city and school budgets continue to plummet across the state and nation, officials are scraping the very bottom of the barrel for ideas to stay afloat. But recent discussions on the local level to attract advertising dollars are about as slippery a slope as they come. Like Crocodile Mile with Vaseline.

While everyone else was watching the Vikings edge the Packers on Monday, the Eau Claire school board discussed (and approved) the selling of naming rights for its facilities. As WEAU reported, “With the ruling, board members say they could sell naming rights for a large amount of money or name their facilities to honor people who were great leaders or have historic significance.” That’s true, but isn’t it also true that Lakeshore could become Hannah Montana Elementary School, or “The Doghouse” at North High could become Twilight Gymnasium, or Memorial could become High School Musical 4 High School?

It sounds ridiculous, but it was the exact concern of City Manager Mike Huggins a few months ago when he discussed the same revenue-generator to help alleviate the city’s anticipated budget shortfall of between $1.2 and $1.7 million in 2010. “The question is how far do you go?” he said. “Does city hall become the Pepsi Government Building?”

While the school district has yet to have offers of this kind, and expects to discuss it further at upcoming informational meetings, it’s hard to think about the scheme without recalling the lyrics to The Limbo Rock: How low can you go?