We don't pretend to know all of the ins and outs of the Fieldcrest Referendum. We do know ridiculous school administration rhetoric and threats when we hear them:
According to Superintendent Randall S. Vincent, the board has promised to reduce those fees by at least 50 percent if an education tax rate referendum passes in November because, according to a district survey, school fees are a primary concern for those in the community..
"I don't think the fees will ever go away but we can bring them down to the level of other communities in our area," he said. " ... If the referendum passes, the board will definitely cut (participation) fees by 50 percent, but they may do more. If we are in better shape, I'm sure they will consider it (cutting fees further)."
So, in other words, "you can pay me now or you can pay me later, but YOU WILL PAY ME; and if you vote down a referendum, your 'fees' will go up and up and up and we'll still come back again and again and again with referendums 'till we get one passed. You got a problem with that?"
2 comments:
The Fieldcrest Administration and Referendum Committee is very shrewd and dishonest in how it's communicating the costs of the two options. They say, "Since the overall tax rate will drop $0.02 and individual taxes will be the same regardless of the vote why wouldn't a voter vote 'Yes'." (Even a local bank officer and its marketing employee have been quoted in MinonkTalk articles using similar misleading language. It's a shame that even professional finance folks won't be up front about this.)
That statement is misleading. It's based upon comparing the annual cost of a passed referendum to the $325,000 TOTAL cost of interest fees for the bonds it says it must purchase if the referendum fails. People are being wrongly convinced that their money will either go to education or taxes. For a true comparison, the proponets should be honest and cite the ANNUAL interest payment. Further, those bond payments, by definition, end after a fixed number of years. The increased tax rate from a passed referendum, on the other hand, does not expire. They carefully have omitted these facts. The taxpayers deserve to see a detailed financial analysis of the cost/benefit of the options. Instead, all they've received is marketing talk from the referendum's proponets. This is an insult to the intelligence of the taxpayers.
Listen my friend, you're preaching to the choir here.
The thing that gets me is every school district with a pending referendum, and their 'committees' write the same 'letters to the editor' saying one must be "uninformed" if they don't agree with them and have not attending their propogand meetings.
In other words, we're just stupid if we don't want to "give them more money".
I've taught; my wife teaches - we also pay skyrocketing property taxes. We want the schools properly funded. We have kids. But as you say, we don't want to be insulted.
Unfortunately, these consultant purchased media campaigns (with our tax dollars) seem to work for them.
Post a Comment