|
Central South Dakota | The reason IMHO as to why so many farmers are against it is the fact most opt-outs are sold to the city folks in the community as "save the school for the children, pay an extra $100 a year on your house so we don't close or can have better facilities." Who wouldn't like their kid to have a new school for their kid for a $100 bill.
Now I realize not all farmers own all the land in the district, but if an opt-out passes I know everyone of my landlords will be jacking the rent up so I will pay the full cost of it anyways. How does this affect me you say. If an opt-out passed here using your $1.27 an acre figure the additional taxes would cost our operation $19250.00 off our bottom line between the land we own and the additional rent I would be charged.
Now here is the stickler, a person in town has a $100K house and 3 kids going to school. Their kids brings in $30/kid/year towards a new school. Now I pay $19250 and have 1 child that is 4 years away from going to school, so my kid is worth $19250 to the new school/kid/year. Now tell me which set of kids you want coming to your district from a dollars and cents standpoint.
You also have to look at it from the standpoint of people without kids any longer. You could have a retired couple paying an extra $100/year on their house. While their farmer neighbor or business ownerthat took a risk and built an operation up suddenly is taking a $19K/year hit.
IMHO this is why so many farmers/business owners are against opt-outs, the feel they pay more than their fair share and are put at a big disadvantage in an opt-out vote because anyone that lives in the district can vote for the opt-out weather they pay taxes or not. You could have 1500-2000 people voting for a $100/year increase and 200-300 people looking at the 20k a year increases.
IMHO too, when the first presentation is brought to the public of what needs to be built and for how much. The question I always have is how much of that cost is true need and how much of that cost is things people or groups want included just because were building. Think of it this way lets just say you were looking at building a $10million dollar school. If you had to write the check out of your own personal funds would it still be a $10million school, or would it suddenly become an $8million school, or a $4 million school. Its always easier to spend on wants rather than needs when you are spending some faceless, nameless, mass of taxpayers money versus your own. | |
|
Anybody build a new school lately?
