Taxes again

[jinman]

It isn't just the physical school plant, sports facilities and the like that have grown. The school's mission has grown. When most of us were kids, very little was spent on special programs for the gifted or the learning disabled. There was no public school kindergarten where I grew up either.

Yep, and the schools have become day care centers providing at least two meals a day and minor medical help. They even have summer school meal programs when school is out. What's next, free dormitories? It seems the more social expectations of our schools, the less education is stressed. Parents may not attend PTA meetings, but there'll be a line around the block if you are handing out free school supplies and backpacks.

 

[dave1949]

Yep, and the schools have become day care centers providing at least two meals a day and minor medical help. They even have summer school meal programs when school is out. What's next, free dormitories? It seems the more social expectations of our schools, the less education is stressed. Parents may not attend PTA meetings, but there'll be a line around the block if you are handing out free school supplies and backpacks.

Exactly. The core mission of education is being diluted by all those other things.

I understand the importance of nutrition to child development and certainly don't begrudge a kid a decent meal. But referring to 'the schools' sure doesn't mean what it used to when looking at expenditures.
Dave.

 

[Chuck52]

None of the schools I attended had a gym until I got to high school. ALL the schools my kids attended here have gyms, and almost all are better by far than the one in my high school. The elementary school my kids attended, or whatever they called the school before junior high, is a fantastic building. One of the heirs to the Walmart empire lives just down the road from that school, and it was good enough for their kids.

School taxes drive the real estate taxes here...I guess that is common? The school board can increase the rate to some extent even without a vote. In the past, they've almost always won the vote anyway, but lately the cow is beginning to complain of rough milking.

I have and still do support good schools but as others have said, the buildings are getting a bit ridiculous. Here, they seem to under-build the classrooms and end up using trailers for extra space even though the buildings are beautiful.

Chuck

 

[Bison]

The county I live in the cost of education is $9,500/child/year of which the county tax payers pay $4,000. Half the county budget goes to schools, this year the school operating budget is $92 million. Interesting also is the cities to the east and west of me have far more development, then in my county, yet their tax rate is over twice that of my county. Also with development comes infrastructure cost (water, sewer, roads, electricity). A little sewer treatment plant in my county cost $10 million to built and cost the tax payers even the ones on well and septic $1 million per year. We built a gym at one school that was $8 million and did a few upgrades to another school that was $38 million.

There is NO way development pays for itself. That is why there is such a big push for proffers some have said for each house built the cost should be $30,000 to the local government.

I would much rather see the land used for farming after all it costs nothing to educate a cow.

There you got the problem.8 million for a gym is a little overboard ain't it.

My brother works as a contractor a does a lot of school projects.
He says the money waste year after year is completely insane.
Its all Ego,school board and gov-ment idiocy.

 

[Furu]

Schools have become architectural showplaces which just raise the costs tremendously. Administration overhead is out of control. My high school graduation class was 680 students and if the 10th and 11th grade were estimated at the same size, the school would have been 2040 students. One Principal and one Vice-principal. The nearby high school has 1800 students and seven vice-principals. What do they need that many for with less kids that we had.

Not to gore anyone's ox BUT: we reward lifestyles and/or poor decision making and punish everyone else. For every child someone pops out they get a large federal tax cut and state tax cut, thus paying less taxes and consuming more federal and state benefits transferring the responsibility to the rest of society. In addition they put another burden on the taxpayer in the local system, more school taxes, benefits etc. The families or never married mothers that have many, many kids unfairly burden the rest of the taxpayers when they pay less taxes and soak up more benefits. Some will say that they consume more and contribute to the economy but the numbers disprove this if they actually are calculated.
Why not give a tax deduction for say 2 children and then remove deductions for anything over that and then tax extra. Make it fair and stop punishing the folks that drain less resources from the government. Of course the numbers of these people that pay no taxes anyway (as just under half of the so called "taxpayers" don't owe taxes anyway) they just suckle off the rest of society.

Let the barbs and vitriol begin.

 

[JD5210]

On Schools. At least here 80% of the school budget is salaries. Free lunches are actually paid by the parents that pay for their childrens lunch. We have about 10,000 kids our superintendent gets $200,000 a year (this is salary and benefits).

While the buildings are high in cost, it is actually the labor cost that has gotten out of hand.

 

[300UGUY]

The problems you mention are not caused by development but overspending by the school board and government officials. That gym should have probably been built for 5 million or less. Lets say an average house hold makes 50,000 dollars a year that money is going somewhere as not many people are saving it. If you think schools cost a lot try looking up what tax money is going out in subsidies to those farmers that you dont think cost you anything. My point is people think that growth and development causes the taxes to go up and in reality thats not the case. Any area that doesnt grow will die. This economic turndown and real estate crisis is a prime example.In our area the county Gov was doing everthing it could to slow development claiming the same things you were with school and infrastructer cost. Now the building is at 10 persent or less than it was but the county hasnt layed off 1 person in the departments that over see development and they are begging builders to start something. If your view was true we would all be happy with no moving foward and the taxes would be comming down.

Different developments pay off differently. But development incentives, tax abatements pretty much kill any revenue increase. When they put a super Wall Mart in here, Wall Mart had a public meeting on what impact the community could expect, based on experience with other stores. For example, 1100 EMS runs per year. About 1500 police runs. And yet they still got a tax abatement of 50% for 12 years. I think most any commercial development gets abatements. Residential never. I think they ought to be charging much higher impact fees to pay for infrastructure. And I don't think there should be any tax abatements.

 

[300UGUY]

Schools have become architectural showplaces which just raise the costs tremendously. Administration overhead is out of control. My high school graduation class was 680 students and if the 10th and 11th grade were estimated at the same size, the school would have been 2040 students. One Principal and one Vice-principal. The nearby high school has 1800 students and seven vice-principals. What do they need that many for with less kids that we had.

Not to gore anyone's ox BUT: we reward lifestyles and/or poor decision making and punish everyone else. For every child someone pops out they get a large federal tax cut and state tax cut, thus paying less taxes and consuming more federal and state benefits transferring the responsibility to the rest of society. In addition they put another burden on the taxpayer in the local system, more school taxes, benefits etc. The families or never married mothers that have many, many kids unfairly burden the rest of the taxpayers when they pay less taxes and soak up more benefits. Some will say that they consume more and contribute to the economy but the numbers disprove this if they actually are calculated.
Why not give a tax deduction for say 2 children and then remove deductions for anything over that and then tax extra. Make it fair and stop punishing the folks that drain less resources from the government. Of course the numbers of these people that pay no taxes anyway (as just under half of the so called "taxpayers" don't owe taxes anyway) they just suckle off the rest of society.

Let the barbs and vitriol begin.

I went to a high school with 4000 students. I now live in a county with a dozen different school systems, that each has a full complement of admins, their own busing fleet, thier own purchasing department. In total about equal in number to the school system I went thru. They really should consolidate, but nobody is willing to give up "their" school.

 

[Uncle Doug]

That is why many states and federal goverment is struggling under massive debt. Needless spending at all levels has gone unchecked for too long. Raising taxes will not solve the issue. It will take hard cuts to get this country back on track. Many of the cuts will be unpopular to many people (voters).

Is there waste, sure. There is also greed at all levels. The need to keep the money flowing so everyone (voters again?) is happy. That keeps everyone happy except the ones that have to pay the taxes.

Do people really think that raising the taxes for only the rich and big business will not effect everyone else? Last time I checked I was not rich but I do have a 401K or what is left of one. I do pay capital gain taxes on investment earnings, I do invest in big business for the dividends and growth.

While I am not a TEA party member I do think more taxes is not the automatic answer to all our problems.

 

[brin]

" Special education and providing for special needs children are very expensive. The way the federal law works, if a district cannot provide it locally, they foot the bill for that child to attend a special academy which could be out of state even. Some parents of special needs children make a career of demanding every little possible thing their child may possibly benefit from - or not. I understand that is their role as parents, but no one ever decided it was affordable. Schools don't even try to challenge these things in court, the law is all on the child's side."

Dave...One case I knew of here locally....a Special needs student was a quadriplegic, on a ventilator and in a wheel chair with a full time Nurse by his side riding on the bus with him from his home and staying with him all day in class and then riding home with him on the bus at the end of the day...All at taxpayers expense...This is just one example...I know of others.