Local and state government spending soared in the last five years with the higher property taxes in the swelling real estate market. Now it's time for reality and a little taxpayer revolt.
MASSACHUSETTS
August 31, 2008 - Taxpayers in Newton, Massachusetts, turned down a $12 million property-tax increase in May. As a result, (and, no doubt, to punish parents) the school will no longer use substitutes when teachers call in sick.
When teachers call in sick at the two high schools, students in the affected classroom will go to the cafeteria and study on their own.
Last year, the high schools had four to six substitutes available on any given day to fill in for absent teachers. By dropping daily subs at the schools, the district cut $185, 337 from the budget.
---------------------
DISTRICT INFO:
The Newton School District rates a 9, with 10 being highest, at GreatSchools.net
While the state spends $12,808, Newton spends $15,517 per pupil.
--------------------
CONNECTICUT
August 23, 2008 - Taxpayers in Connecticut are showing, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, "growing disenchantment with the price of government, especially of public education."
In Enfield, Connecticut, a citizen cost-cutting committee recommended replacing some public school teachers with low-cost college interns, restricting the use of school vehicles, and increasing employee contributions to benefit plans.
Over the past two and a half decades, the student population in Connecticut has increased only 10%. Yet the cost of schooling more than doubled -- to $8.8 billion in 2006, up from $3.4 billion in 1981.As of the end of June, a record 85 of Connecticut's 169 municipalities had or were planning budget referenda to limit spending.
Seventeen years ago, the state enacted an income tax with promises to cut other taxes. Instead, real-estate assessments soared, creating a massive income transfer from the private to the public sector, fueled in part by a state cost-sharing formula that uses taxes on residents in the suburbs to subsidize urban schools.
Helping to soak up all that money were binding arbitration laws, skewed to give teacher unions an advantage in collective bargaining negotiations.
The result is that the average teacher salary is now the highest in the nation -- $57,750 excluding benefits, according to the latest survey of the American Federation of Teachers.
Meanwhile, the American Legislative Exchange Council reports that Connecticut is one of the 10 states with the heaviest property-tax burdens.
----------------
TT - It bears repeating: Over the past two and a half decades, the student population in Connecticut has increased only 10%. Yet the cost of schooling more than doubled -- to $8.8 billion in 2006, up from $3.4 billion in 1981.
