Dave:While an argument can be made that it is bett...

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31730692.post-10074740080361755452008-03-12T18:16:00.000-04:002008-03-12T18:16:00.000-04:002008-03-12T18:16:00.000-04:00Dave:While an argument can be made that it is bett...Dave: While an argument can be made that it is better to fund schools primarily with state money rather than local money, no one should believe that it will lower the aggregate burden on Ohio taxpayers. IMO, the primary (and unspoken) goal of the GIRFOF amendment is to create a stable compensation funding source for school employees, not to lower the burden on taxpayers. I for one am fairly confident that <A HREF="http://savethehilliardschools.blogspot.com/2007/04/taxes-to-left-of-me-taxes-to-right.html" REL="nofollow">GIRFOF</A> will increase the total burden on taxpayers because its design is to raise the funding to the districts with the lowest PPS while allowing the rest of the districts to keep their spending at current levels by supplementing State Aid with (horrors!) local property taxes. So my property taxes may go down (not away), but I bet my state income tax, sales tax, and who-knows-what tax will go up - more than my property taxes went down. I don't know about other districts, but here in Hilliard the issue is primarily the ignorance of the electorate. Our voters are not stupid people - they've just never had the structure of school funding explained to them by our school leadership. And so the voters don't undertand that very few houses generate enough property taxes to pay for the cost of educating the kids that live there, especially in a high-growth district like ours where nearly all houses have kids - because the parents moved here to put their kids in a good school system with a low tax burden. Unfortunately, the act of moving here screwed up the funding balance (residential vs commercial vs State), making us a highly taxed district. Nor did they understand that nearly 90% of the cost of operating our district is salaries and benefits, and that teachers are actually compensated fairly well (I think most believe teachers take a vow of poverty when they get their licenses). And so when times are getting tight, as they are now, they don't see why they should be paying for 7% raises (with the step) and 100% of the healthcare costs when their own healthcare burden is skyrocketing. We had a 9.5 mill permanent operating levy on the ballot last week. It was shot down with 57% of the vote against, the widest margin in my memory, in spite of the campaign committee spending over $50,000. And now the BOE seems poised to be vindictive in their response by cutting stuff that directly affects kids and families (e.g. transportation) instead of asking the teachers' union, which whom they are also acrimoniously negotiating, to hold off on salary increases for a year - a sacrifice many of us in private industry have been asked to make (the other choice being to get fired). That's going to make getting the levy passed in November even harder. And that means there's a chance our new $60 million third high school is going to sit finished but with no money to staff it. PLPaulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05960574627644930183noreply@blogger.com