Local School Taxes. How do you fund school reconstruction?

February 1, 2007 | BigBuzzard

[bigbuzzard]

I am considering a run for School Board in my community. We really have a terrific school district and one of my jobs would be to keep it that way. However, we have a major reconstruction of the high school coming down the pipe that will start design and planning in the next 12 months. Total cost of the project will be around $10million. We have around 25,000 people in the community and our real estate taxes are relatively high. Figure for a $200,000 house you pay $5,000 per year PLUS a 2% wage tax. Revenue for the school district comes primarily from the areas residents in the form of this real estate tax. The wage tax revenue gets shared between the school and the municipality.

I would like help in coming up with creative ways to finance the school reconstruction without adding to an already burdensome tax system in our community. I have flirted with ideas like initiating a once yearly 'fee' without calling it a 'tax' but it would be a tax.

Now this is an established, old community where there is not much real estate to grow on. There are no new housing developments in town because there is no more open land. So working in synch with the town to attract that sort of incremental tax base appears to be out of the question.

To pay the $10 million I am looking at three ways to get it done:

1) Raise taxes (in some shape or form) 2) Cut services (like THAT would win me an election!) 3) Increase the tax base 4) Hold bake sales (or some other type of fundraiser-and no, I am so NOT kidding about this- well, maybe the bake sale part but raising the money through fund-raisers doesnt seem to be out of the question for me)

Anyway, this is only my second lifetime FR post so be gentle with me. Any original idea will be considered and expect me to ask questions about it.

Thanks in advance!

[kinoxi]

What general area of the country are you located in?

[j. earl carter]

buy a congressman

[pikachu]

Auction the name for the school off on Ebay. Hopefully you'll get some rich guy who wants to see his name on the side of a building, on diplomas, and in the paper and not the Vicks Vap-o-rub High School.

[pnh102]

Scrap the plan and blame Bush? :)

[2banana]

Dear Editor,

Funny how you don't mention where any of that tax money is going. The majority of property taxes are school taxes.

1. 2/3 of any school budget goes to teacher and administrator salaries and benefits. In the area I live, many teachers' are making close to $100,000/year for 180 days of work plus some of the best benefits in the country (salaries are even higher in some of the area you reported on). They pay nothing for health care and have pensions unheard of in the private sector.

2. The Teacher's Union. Whenever a district tries to at least hold the line on teacher's salaries or benefits, they are faced with a strike at the beginning of the school year. The teacher's know that they will not be replaced and that pressure from parent's work schedules will eventually bring the district to settle in their favor.

3. I am sorry that seniors are being forced out of their housing due to high taxes. Have they voted for candidates for lower taxes? Have they run themselves? Have they promoted any kind of alternatives? Have they done anything except suggest that someone else should pay for their share?

The basic equation is that outrageous pay and benefits (unseen in the private sector) for teachers and administrators backed by a powerful union and a state monopoly are forcing the higher taxes. This, in turn, is forcing seniors and working class families (especially with children) out of their homes.

Regards,

2banana

[Concho]

Tell us where you live, cause we sure dont want to move there with taxes like that. I have a $200,000 house and my taxes are $650 a year and that's plenty. I sure wouldnt want to pay $5000.

If I lived in a place like that, I wouldnt be running for office, I'd be for moving to a place with less taxes.

[sportutegrl]

In our school district, average per pupil spending is about $14,000. The brand new Catholic high school charges about $5000 per year in tuition. I would give out vouchers for half of what the district is spending now to everyone that pulls their kids out of the district, cut taxes in half and go home.

[Jaysun]

One huge question that I have is why a $10 million school construction project is necessary in the area that you've described: an established neighborhood without growth.

Here in Alabama the state is looked to for some help in building schools, but new schools aren't built unless they're needed. Also consider putting a bond up for vote.

[billybudd]

The bake-sale approach is a good one, not necessarily literally, but any kind of fundraiser with community involvement. For example, maybe you can split off at least some of the reconstruction project into smaller, easily-identifiable subprojects and hold a fundraiser for each one, every 6 months or so. That can give people a feeling that they're making a concrete contribution. Maybe have all the names of the contributors on a plaque on whatever building was built/renovated.

I don't suggest raising taxes. That's an impersonal approach and will just make people resent you. Get the people in the community involved and feeling like it's *their* project.

[poobear]

Ask the teachers to forfeit there lifetime pensions and health care benefits and ask the Principles to lower their 6 digit paychecks for 9 months of work.

Here kitty kitty...

[RonF]

Tell us where you live, cause we sure dont want to move there with taxes like that. I have a $200,000 house and my taxes are $650 a year and that's plenty. I sure wouldnt want to pay $5000.

What are your State income taxes, local sales taxes, etc.? My house is worth about $300,000. I live in the Chicago suburbs, in Cook County. My property taxes are $5,200. My income tax is 3%. My sales taxes are 6.75%. The overall cost of living is high, but then so are the salaries in the area. Where my company is HQ'd in Arkansas, the property taxes are lower but other taxes are higher.

[RedStateRocker]

Is the project necessary? Seems to me that if
Athens only needed a porch or a field that any semi warm, dry space should be fine. If parents want kids to have computers and fancy equipment like jungle gyms then they should pay for it themselves. The only purpose of a school is to teach Reading, Writing and Arithmetic; or as Robert Heinlein would have put it math, history and languages.

[politicalwit]

As a former school board member of a small New England community I highly suggest you solidify your base. Couples with children attending school generally do not object to school tax. Oh, they may mumble, but they'll still vote to raise taxes. Older voters (55+ years old age) will be far more receptive to reductions in staff, benefits and all the bennies most teachers receive. These are the folks that are on fixed incomes and can't afford more and more taxes each year. Talk with these people...open things up for discussion...consolidate your ideas with their ideas.

Believe me, you'll catch all kinds of grief from the liberals but stay true to the base...after all, it's for the old folks.

[Rudder]

You don't finance from strictly local money---you'll need that for operating and maintenance costs. You fund it with matching grants from the state and the feds. Your board should consult with a grant writer who has done this before.

[groanup]

If you have construction already slated then some sort of funding method must be in the works already. What are they?

Options:

Local Option Sales Tax

Bond issue. (Watch out for derivative salesmen.)

Tax increase

Current revenues.(yeah right).

[zek157]

sell 40 year bonds and let the community pay for the school with inflated worthless $'s.

[groanup]

Your taxes are alreay way too high. If it is an old established neighborhood how are the old established neighbors on fixed incomes able to afford such taxes? Is there an exemption after a certain age?

If you raise 10 million with bake sales I want to hire you.

[Mark was here]

The High School I went to in the mid '70's was brand new and cost $8 Million to build. Now you are going to build one for $10 Million?

By the way, Nixon even came by for the opening of the building.

[SoftballMominVA]

You might want to look at a line-item budget and see where the money is currently going. You may find some waste there and/or programs that are being duplicated. Pay special attention to the special education area. There may be some children in residential programs that are graduating and therefore will not require those services. The department heads won't volunteer that information.

Also, think about a sponsorship for the stadium that will probably come with the high school. Look at the high school set up. One current trend is to have teachers not use their rooms for planning, but rather a central area. This can potentially decrease a great deal of space as all rooms are used every period of the day rather than have a room empty of kids with one teacher in there planning.

I'll put brains together with another teacher and get back to you