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SENE | Here's to show you how grubby the Leaders are. In Southeast Nebraska is a Southeast Community College that get there tax money from Tax payers. Below is a what they are doing under cover READ
SCC bond issue
As a former candidate for the Board of Governors
for Southeast Community College, I have a somewhat
informed view of what has been happening with SCC
and what is being proposed by SCC in terms of the
bond issue.
The taxpayers of the 15-county SCC have just recently
financed 50%, or $12-13 million, of the new career
academy at the 84th & O campus. However no one
outside of the Lincoln Public School District is allowed
to use the academy. While I was campaigning for the
Board I was amazed at the lack of knowledge in my
5-county district constituency as to paying for 50% of
the academy while not being able to utilize it. The lack
of information from SCC about this issue was, I believe,
no accident. In visiting with the now-retired President,
he told me personally that there would be no slots
reserved for students outside of the LPS district. In
my opinion some slots should have been reserved for
students outside of the LPS district so that the taxpayer
would have gotten at least a little for their money and
some students outside LPS would have gotten to take
advantage of the Academy option. I believe that the
Academy is a very good idea; but disagree as to how it
was funded and how it is being administered.
Now for the proposed $369 million bond proposal on
the November 8th ballot. In the October 7th issue of
the Lincoln Journal Star, it states that the bond would
provide $127 million for the Beatrice campus, $88
million for the Milford campus, with the rest going to
Lincoln, not even mentioning the dollar, amount which
is $154 million, by far the largest piece of the pie. What
is fair about adding another campus in Lincoln when
the 5-county district in the southeast corner of the
state has nothing. Apparently, some funds will go to
the 84th & O campus where the new career academy
has just been finished at a cost of $25 million. The
taxpayers in far southeast Nebraska deserve better. I
am totally against the bond issue and will be against
all bond issues until the legislature can come up with a
way to take the educational tax load off of the back of
property owners. We always hear about the property
tax increase on a $100,000 house, which in this case
is $39. We never hear about what the increase will be
on a $1 million farm, which is a relatively small farm
now. The tax increase will be, of course, ten times the
house tax, or $390. To exacerbate the problem, the
large increase in ag land values has dropped the state
aid to K-12 districts in rural-dominated areas down
to nothing, or very little, thereby increasing ag land
property taxes to unprecedented levels. The taxes on
my relatively small farm have gone up 254% since
2003 with no significant capital improvements. If the
bond issue were to pass, the SCC tax increase on my
farm will be $474 in addition to the $920 I am now
paying. That $920 is over 50% higher than it was the
year before, due to a 26.5% increase in SCC tax levy
and a higher appraisal value. That is almost $1400 in
taxes to SCC alone on my relatively small farm. Then
add to that over $11,000 for my K-12 school district,
which receives no state aid, and you can see where the
ag industry, which is in severe financial distress right
now, is deeply concerned about raising taxes even
further with the proposed bond issue.
If one Nebraska State legislator had experienced this
type of tax increase, maybe she wouldn’t have said, “I
think farmers just don’t want to pay their taxes.”
In summary, I urge everybody to vote “NO” on the
SCC bond issue because it is too expensive, distribution
of the funds are not equitable, sets a bad precedent,
and comes at a critical time for a large portion of the
tax-paying base, the agricultural community.
Milan Tomek
Milan Tomek is a retired territory sales manager for
an ag company. He lives in Table Rock and owns a
farm in Pawnee County. He can be contacted at 402-
852-6366 or emailed at [email protected]. | |
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