Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita, wants to extend the current three-year school finance plan by locking in another year of funding. She and Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, and Senate Vice President John Vratil, R-Leawood, are calling for a $65 million funding increase for the 2009-10 school year, or a 2.2 percent increase. That’s barely enough to cover inflation, state education officials say, and wouldn’t address low teacher salaries. But K-12 education spending must compete with other pressing budget demands. And if last month’s much-lower-than-expected state tax collections reflect a slowing economy, locking in a modest increase now may be better than holding out for a bigger increase later that may never come.
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44 Comments
With the economy starting to falter, unemployment on the rise, incomes leveling or falling relative to the dollars value and they want to raise school funding.
Sure shows where the priorities AREN’T. There not with the taxpayer for sure.
On Senator Roberts ‘Town Hall’ phone sessions just last night several older people and couples were frightened, saying they were getting taxed out of their life long homes with the property tax increases going up faster than their fixed incomes could keep up with.
Lets not let taxpayer funded programs, of all sorts, become a cancer on this country.
Look at what we have to look forward to:
“Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) plans to propose a $70 billion economic stimulus package — including emergency housing and heating assistance — as part of an effort to reinforce her appeal to non-affluent Democrats.”
And: “Clinton On Immigration: ‘No Woman Is Illegal’…”
And: “US TRIPLE-A CREDIT RATING UNDER THREAT FROM SOARING WELFARE COSTS…”
From the Kansas Taxpayers Network:
http://www.kansastaxpayers.com
KTN Supporters,
Wichita School Bond Issue.
If you live inside the boundaries of the Wichita Public School district there is another property tax hike that is now facing you.
The school district is looking at a 3-to-6 mill increase in property taxes to fund a $340M-to-$380M in new capital spending to be financed with a 20 year bond issue. This bond issue would also extend the 2000 bond issue out another eight years, or make it 40% longer.
I expect this bond issue to be voted upon later this spring. My best guess is early April.
Here are some key facts that the mainstream Wichita press hat not reported: 1) there is no increase in USD 259 enrollment–the district’s overcrowded school argument is only a problem in a handful of schools and the district refuses to shift their school boundaries. Actually USD 259 enrollment has been dropping and has fallen by 330 students between 2000 and the 2006-07 school year. The 2000 bond issue was supposed to add space for 2,550 additional students. What is wrong with the district’s math?!?
2) Spending on facilities is soaring in USD 259. In the last year before the school bond issue was passed, the district spent $10.9 million. This year spending on capital expenditures, bonds, & interest is budgeted at $57.1 million (all data is from USD 259 budgets for various years).
It is more than five times higher in less than a decade! Yet our local news media continues to quote school officials like former school board president Chip Gramke or board member Lynn Rogers who have repeatedly complained about “budget cuts,” facing the district.
3) Taxes are soaring in USD 259. When Winston Brooks became superintendent in 1998 the district’s total mill levy was 37.6 mills. Today, the mill levy is 53.3 mills and we are facing another increase of 3-to-6 mills more.
In the last year before the 2000 bond issue, the district’s total mill levy for facilities and capital spending was four mills. Today the capital outlay and bond mill levy is 12.96 mills, and has more than tripled in less than a decade. This increase excluded appraisal hikes too.
If the voters approve the next bond issue, the total facilities mill levy for USD 259 could grow to 16-to-19 mills for a district that is losing enrollment!
Another fact that is not being reported is the cost of this special election. The election commissioner told KTN this week that it would cost $75,000 to hold a special election for this bond issue this year. Why hold a special election? We will be holding two elections in August and November where this could be voted upon by a broader section of the electorate and it would not cost the school district a penny for a vote at that time.
Please check out the attachment and print it out for your information. This attachment is being posted on KTN’s web site. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact KTN’s office in Wichita.
http://www.kansastaxpayers.com
Bobj must really HATE our children!
bobj doesn’t “rally HATE our children” at all.
All this money is not going to their improvement. Read the stats dummy and then justify the money the school board wants to take from the public.
Stats???????????
You mean Karl Peterjohn’s conservative, reichwing spin on things?
The fact is that our children deserve better than they have.
Game
Set
Match
Education is an investment; you get out of it what you put into it.
Bobj, Peterjohn the “KTN” and others must really hate our children.
DUMMY!
Apophis, go back to school yourself, you haven’t matured past kindergarten.
Those stats were supplied by the school board, you dummy!
Where the children deserve better is not the question dummy, the question is whether spending more money does anything positive for the children or just the school administrative staff. It has not proven to help the kids much at all. There are private schools all over town educating kids much better than the public schools on much less money per student. The best thing the school board could do to help the kids is simply pay the private schools to take them.
bobj
Posted January 11, 2008 at 8:55 pm | Permalink
Apophis, go back to school yourself, you haven’t matured past kindergarten.
Those stats were supplied by the school board, you dummy!
Where the children deserve better is not the question dummy, the question is whether spending more money does anything positive for the children or just the school administrative staff. It has not proven to help the kids much at all. There are private schools all over town educating kids much better than the public schools on much less money per student. The best thing the school board could do to help the kids is simply pay the private schools to take them.
Bobj hates our community schools and our children.
All he/she can do is to call someone a “dummy” who disagrees whith his/her reichwing worldview.
Our children deserve better than bobj wants.
No Apophis Dummy,
You are the one to first use the word Dummy, or don’t your remember, dummy. I’ll refresh your memory.
Apophis
Posted January 11, 2008 at 6:38 pm | Permalink
“Stats???????????
You mean Karl Peterjohn’s conservative, reichwing spin on things?
The fact is that our children deserve better than they have.
Game
Set
Match
Education is an investment; you get out of it what you put into it.
Bobj, Peterjohn the “KTN” and others must really hate our children.
DUMMY!”
If your don’t like that term and are critical of people using it referring to you maybe you should quit using it. Or were you educated in a public school and not taught that in kindergarten?
Ah aghawk……………before you start the reichwing, anti-children dogpile, be sure that you actually read ALL of the posts.
It was actually your KTN BP buddy who used the term “dummy” first in a post on this thread:
“bobj
Posted January 11, 2008 at 6:27 pm | Permalink
bobj doesn’t “rally HATE our children” at all.
All this money is not going to their improvement. Read the stats dummy and then justify the money the school board wants to take from the public”
Typical of a reichwinger……………attack a progressive, at all costs.
SPIN
SPIN
SPIN
Add Aghawk to the list of reichwing bloggers who hate our children and community schools. I’m sure there will be many more.
Please point out where I first used or posted your term “Dummy” prior to your name calling use of it.
You are mindless moron and can only attack anything you don’t agree with. Look at the lack of substance of any of your posts. Pathetic!
Now lets see you throw another little tantrum you undisciplined child.
I see that Apophis is on another “kotex induced” raging rant.
I see, the term was used by someone else. It appears they used it appropriately though.
Bobj is making statements that have no basis in fact. Private schools spend less and educate better? How does he know this since privates schools do not have to publish their budgets for the public to view? Then does he really think that private schools are equipped to deal with special needs students, autistic students and behavior disorders? Public schools continue to provide these services for children in private school. Private schools pick and choose their students. Then of course there is the issue of accountability, what private schools are prepared to open their schools to the full view of the public and be held accountable? My guess is very few, that’s why they are called “private.”
You can’t compare apples to oranges. So don’t try and compare private and public schools that aren’t on an even playing field.
Education Advocate,
Your points are well stated and the ones concerning special needs students, autistic students and behavior disorders are good, thank you. But I don’t believe all those students are tested and the scores included in the testing reports, I may be wrong there I concede, but that’s my perception. The Eagle publishes those test reports annually and the private schools, independent, Catholic and Lutheran in Wichita’s case, clearly exceed the public schools numbers in almost all situations across the range of testing. The school my children attended did and do take in a given number of indigent family children as well.
With respect to the budgets you are incorrect. My children attended a private school K-8 and the budget was open for us to review. I live in a neighborhood with many Catholic families, which we are not, and their parish schools take all the parish family children without picking and choosing.
There is clearly an efficiency in the funding associated with good educational outcomes coming from private schools not functioning as well with the public schools. We need to figure out what that is and bring it to the public school instead of continuing to waste more dollars through more tax increases. By the way, I am not necessarily being critical of public school teachers at all.
bobj
Your rant is totally off thread anyway.
This thread is supposed to be about state level funding, not the KTN’s attempt to micro-manage USD 259.
Why do you hate our children and their community schools so much?
Apophis,
It is totally on thread, whether it’s state funding or a local bond issue it all comes out of the taxpayer’s pocket and a great deal of it is wasted on the public schools inefficiencies.
You are the one who must ‘hate our children’ because you want to continue doing the same thing over and over that doesn’t produce positive results with their educations. Do you think you will get a different outcome doing the same thing repeatedly. That’s defined as stupidity.
Are you brain dead or simply a jerk, be a good little jerk and go back in your hole.
bobj
Educating children isn’t like producing widgets in a factory. To say that there are no positive results in our community schools is plain asinine.
Admit to the blog, you have an agenda. You and others like you wan to funnel tax dollars from the public sector to the private sector. You’re just another “I want to be a rich person” conservative. Your brand of voodoo economics has never and will never work.
Oh bobj, call me a jerk if you want but I do have a little more firsthand knowledge about how the system works than you might think.
Added point, I don’t get my ideas from Peterjohn and his anti-tax morons. Everyone knows that any public service costs money. I am taxed as much as you are; only I understand the need for the investment.
If you bothered to read the link on the thread, you might notice that those are REPUBLICAN Legislators who are proposing the funding extension. I think your own party deems you irrelevent.
Apophos, again, why don’t you shut it up, you are continuing to make a complete ass of yourself.
You state;
“Admit to the blog, you have an agenda. You and others like you wan (sp?) to funnel tax dollars from the public sector to the private sector.”
How stupid a statement is that, they are MY dollars, not the public’s. What are you some kind of demented little communist?
You state;
“You’re just another “I want to be a rich person” conservative.”
Are you trying to tell me, and the rest of this blog, you choose to be poor and do not want to have assets of your own? Try, and I can add ‘liar’ to the mix of character traits you seem to possess.
I don’t care if they are Republican Senators or not, it is inappropriate to increase taxes when looking at a potential coming recession. That is not the time to be taxing and further putting brakes on the economy.
Under capitalism everybody provides for their own needs by serving others, under socialism/communism the government steals our personal assets and kills entrepreneurship.
The government doesn’t work. I work, maybe you work (doubt it), Federal Express works, Microsoft works, the Salvation Army works, Alcoholics Anonymous works, but government doesn’t.
Nice shot at the military there “Aghawk”
And the post office. And the FDA.
And the police.
And firemen.
etc etc.
Government does MANY things better than private enterprise. Profit driven enterprise is often too focused on the bottom line.
Listen to JimmyMac whine about property taxes.
Your property taxes are less than peoples’ cable bill . . .
“Nice shot at the military there “Aghawk”
And the post office. And the FDA.
And the police.
And firemen.
etc etc.”
They don’t create dollars, they consume them. When I use the term ‘work’ it is equated with ‘production’
CapnAmerica
Posted January 12, 2008 at 9:29 pm | Permalink
“Listen to JimmyMac whine about property taxes.
Your property taxes are less than peoples’ cable bill . . .”
But then what would you know as you seem brain dead. and I’m sure your property taxes ARE LESS than your cable bill, but what does that say about you there dead beat.
And yet YOU don’t work.
aghawk…………..it is YOU who is making an ass out of yourself. The world isn’t all about your “creating dollars”. You are just another short-sighted ass.
I do have a job, I pay taxes and I invest. Yet, I still see the need to care about my fellow human being unlike you.
You’re just another failure who thinks that voodoo economics will one day make you rich.
You are irrelevent.
Apophis, again you are completely in the dark.
In away you are somewhat correct, I am personally nearly broke. I don’t personally own very much as I have all my assets, easily in the seven figures, placed in a Trust, and last year I donated probably a hefty percentage of what you make.
Quiet little man.
AgHawk–
My property taxes are many times my cable bill.
It’s been my experience that truly wealthy people don’t feel the need to boast of their wealth.
Kinda like me and cowboy hats, heh . . .
Congratulations Capn, at least that’s one thing you are doing right. Maybe you have some potential after all. In time you might just learn a thing or two and come over from the dark side. I hope for your sake.
Being a capitalist and a conservative is not in anyway mutually exclusive with caring and giving. Government confiscation and redistribution has so many inefficiencies and inequities that I don’t even want to start. Caring and helping starts with the individual not with the government.
You’re right, but I’m not boasting.
Just fact to clarify where I’m coming from and to counter your and what’s his name, Oedipus, up there’s contention that I’m “just another failure who thinks that voodoo economics will one day make you rich”.
PS: Capn, do you like cowboy hats? So do I, don’t own any, wish I did. I’m not that tall and I think they make me look like a “maroon”, I think I got that from you. Ha.
I’m headed off this mindless machine to go read.
Don’t patronize me, you arrogant plick.
I’m betting in RL, a lot of lib post-ers here could buy and sell you several times over.
That doesn’t make them better than you, it just makes them richer.
BTW, four out of ten of the richest people in America didn’t do a damn thing for their money except be descended from Sam Walton.
But the useful idiots like AgHawk will defend to the death their huge personal fortune and refuse to see any connection to the society that creates that kind of wealth.
As if Sam Walton could have built his Wal-Mart empire had he been born in Brazil, Botswana, or Burma.
Nice coup de grace on aghawk Capn’!
Capn, the Maroon in the extreme.
I’ll patronize you anytime I feel like it and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it you impotent little noodle.
I said quiet there ‘Oedipus’, go back to your mommy.
Apop–
I think a lot of these CONs–even though they don’t believe in scientific evolution–believe in social darwinism, that rich people are just better people, like the medieval conception of the aristocracy.
They are the people favored and blessed by God, they have the good genes, they are the producers of what society wants and needs–as if Enron or Halliburton have made the world a better place.
It’s a world-view that literally worships money. Having money and lots of it is proof that one is good, mentally, spiritually, ethically.
Nevermind that Wal-Mart has done more harm to this country than just about any corporation since the Shell Oil Trust.
If society creates it Capn, why don’t you have it too. Does society not like you as much, or do you just not have what it takes and want to take it from someone else.
impotent little noodle
Heh, Agawk, Sigmund Freud called that projection.
From Wiki–
“Projection is the opposite defense mechanism to identification. We project our own unpleasant feelings onto someone else and blame them for having thoughts that we really have.”
In your case, aGawk, you obviously have a fear of impotency which you then defend against by projecting it on to another you dislike.
I think Steven Davis the trained psychologist mentioned it the other day . . .
Until tomorrow, Komrades.
Consistently wrong, as usual Capn.
Every heard of analogy? Your thought process is so ‘impotent’ that using it makes a good analogy.
But….we know what’s bothering your mind now or you wouldn’t have brought it up. Got a problem Capn.
By the way CapnMaroon, if Freud’s projection has taken place at all it most certainly started with you. Or is your memory that faulty. I quote;
CapnAmerica
Posted January 12, 2008 at 10:40 pm | Permalink
“Don’t patronize me, you arrogant plick.”
Your initial use, calling me ‘plick’ is of course competely transparent to all and shows were your mind resides.
I simply responded to your rudeness.
I think I’ve had enough of CapnMaroon and Oedipus on this thread, off to find something and others more mature.
“AgHawk
Posted January 13, 2008 at 8:33 am | Permalink
By the way CapnMaroon, if Freud’s projection has taken place at all it most certainly started with you. Or is your memory that faulty. I quote;
CapnAmerica
Posted January 12, 2008 at 10:40 pm | Permalink
“Don’t patronize me, you arrogant plick.”
Your initial use, calling me ‘plick’ is of course competely transparent to all and shows were your mind resides.
I simply responded to your rudeness.
I think I’ve had enough of CapnMaroon and Oedipus on this thread, off to find something and others more mature.”
Good luck with that. You are definately a deeply troubled person, and I use that word loosely.
Oedipus, you use everything loosely, including your lack of intellect.
You are to be simply dismissed as ’simple’.
…and look WHO is accusing someone of lacking intellect!
….just another reichwing puppet!
Dance little man!
Hey Oedipus, congratulations, at least you are responding to what is the more correct nic for you.
Ha!