My understanding is the school board will institute the raises that were proposed this past August. It was based on tenure – teachers with 1 – 5 years with the county would get $1000, 6 – 10 years would get $2000, 11 – 15 years would get $3000, 16 – 20 years would get $4000 and those with 21+ years would get $5000. Then they would also get their annual merit raise.

The other half is controlled by the city in which a purchase is made, so the cities would have to make that decision. Contact your local city commissioner to find out their thoughts on what the additional revenue would be used for.

Hi Lori, The commission has not discussed increasing the wheel tax.

I’m not fully understanding the budget fund transfer option, but I always advocate for some moving around of budgeting rather than simply raising more money/taxes.

I like a combination as well. Sales tax and wheel tax would be my last choice. Sales tax – at least we’d get more of a choice how much of the extra money to spend. Wheel tax would probably cost me, personally, less though per year than an increased sales tax.

All in all, I’d like to hear for how long all of these options (or the top runners) would need to take the money and what will happen with the increased revenue AFTER the 1.5 million is raised.

Thanks SO much for this wonderful overview!! 🙂

In general terms… suppose that a family with 4 children in our public school system finally has all four of them graduated and off to some points yonder. I believe the current “cost” of one child in our schools is between $7500 and $8,000 per year per child. Clearly THAT is an “impact” on our system, but since they lived in that home prior to the current AFT being put in place they have paid nothing extra to help offset the cost or “impact” over the years. By the way… I am in this category and by no means am I throwing any stones… simply an observation and simple math.

Now… jump ahead a few years and those same parents who are now empty-nesters and want to down-size from their 4-5 bedroom home into something smaller since the kids are gone. If they go build a new home in which to retire… THEY are hit with the AFT and are having ZERO…yes ZERO impact on the schools.

However… the family that bought their 4-5 bedroom home to start raising THEIR family in pays NOTHING towards the true impact they will be making at a cost of let’s say over $30,000 per year… we are “taxing” the wrong folks as well as “incentivizing” the wrong folks. I fail to understand how reasonably intelligent people cannot see this…wow! We are penalizing the wrong people… we want new homes with taxpayers and wage earners living there and it’s an added plus if they are retirement age or at least have no kids in school anymore…

I truly believe that what it really boils down to is that it is a tax on people who do not yet live there / here and cannot vote. To say that only “new” residents are buying new homes is very misleading at best.