A perfect example of backwards thinking
April 24th, 2007 by Atomictumor
A letter to the Oak Ridger today stood out as a shining example of what happens when smart people don’t stop to consider exactly what their positions on things are, and why this weird little town is as backwards as it is today.
Now, I don’t intend to call out the author, because I’ve met him, and he’s a smart, friendly guy, but his points in the article didn’t make much sense. Lets go over them, because this is what I’m getting from a lot of people these days, and it don’t make a lick of sense.
The nut of the thing, and I was going to do a point by point thing but got lazy, is that he’s applauding the school board’s decision to ask for a million extra bucks for their budget so they can slap a 2% raise on the teachers, and telling city council to fully fund the school board and stop screwing around, all points that I wholeheartedly agree with.
However, on the other hand, the dude is trying as hard as he can to block the whole Crestpoint thing, which, by all projections, would be a huge boost to the money available to the school board. I mean, at this point, the school board ain’t getting the money they need without raising property taxes. Now, I’m not necessarily against that, but the town already has one of the highest property tax rates in the state. Seems to me that it ain’t exactly a sign of fiscal health to have to keep milking the already high taxes in order to fund a school system fully.
So, whats the deal? Sure, the city’s going to have to dump some cash into infrastructure and works on the Crestpoint deal, thats life in the 21st century. Yeah, its gonna be traffic. However, that traffic problem is all going to be chock full of people paying income tax into the city, and the lions share of that goes to AC and OR schools.
So, seriously man, how do you negotiate the two points? How would you propose that the city funds the school system for the next 10 years or so, and we’re not talking 2% penny ante raises, we’re talking decent 3-4% raises like everybody else gives?
Peter’s broke, and lemme tell you, Paul is starting to get a mean gleam in his eye…
April 24th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Good assessment of the situation. Raj is a good guy — a major donor to the high school effort, and he does have the right position on supporting the schools.
What most people don’t understand (because it’s complex, the way government generally keeps things) is that sales taxes are important because half of the local option sales tax (2.75 cents on the dollar here in Anderson County) automatically goes to the schools, right off the top.
No Council or Commission approval needed. It’s a big chunk of change, and the decline in that revenue source is a huge part of the problem that drives the schools to ask Council for more money. A lot more.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:01 am
I had similar thoughts.