You can budget with your guaranteed tax money, and any donations, fund drives, etc. can be reliably budgeted in for the following year. It's not real reliable for budgeting purposes to have a homeowner tax base go down if people lose their homes either, yet that's what we have to deal with now. I'm totally on board with local control over how the money the schools do get is used.



I could be wrong too, but with the current way things are done not working for alot of people, it's worth brainstorming about. Whether it's lopsided funding of schools, or people losing homes because of it, neither of those things are good for children any way you look at it. There has got to be a way to have good school funding across the board and not have people losing their homes. We just have to find it.



I just spent a lot of time trying to post  this, and my computer was geeking out for some reason, so the above that I wrote is in response to post # 79

Last edited by BYOB (3/30/2015 10:16 am)

Goose wrote:

So 76 would perpetuate any existing disparities in district funding?
That doesn't seem to make sense.

Me either. Perhaps it is not really as worded there, but if so seems to be a problem right from the get go. 



 

Goose wrote:

BYOB wrote:

. It's not real reliable for budgeting purposes to have a homeowner tax base go down if people lose their homes either, yet that's what we have to deal with now.

 
Actually, we don't know that this is the case.

I've personally known people that have lost their homes or had to move specifically because of property taxes. That means there are that many fewer homeowners that the schools can rely on for tax money. The newspapers have been loaded with sheriff's sales, many of which are due to taxes.

Last edited by BYOB (3/30/2015 10:29 am)

Goose wrote:

BYOB wrote:

I could be wrong too, but with the current way things are done not working for alot of people, it's worth brainstorming about. Whether it's lopsided funding of schools, or people losing homes because of it, neither of those things are good for children any way you look at it. There has got to be a way to have good school funding across the board and not have people losing their homes. We just have to find it.

 
I agree.
FWIW, in Massachusetts we rely more on state income tax for funding schools than on property tax.
We still have property tax, but the system might merit a look.

But, please keep eyes wide open. Some people (not here) act as if 76 is going to be a massive tax cut.
They still have to raise the same amount of money from the citizens of the state. There's no free lunch.

I think the system would definitely merit a look. I, personally, don't see it as any kind of tax cut, and I'm definitely not looking for any kind of free lunch, just maybe a better way to get to where we want to be.
 

Are they losing their homes strictly because of unreasonable property taxes, or is not paying their property taxes just the end of a long financial descent.
See what I'm asking? You cannot look at every sheriff sale and consider it proof that the taxes are the source.

Last edited by Goose (3/30/2015 11:25 am)