Sticking others with the bill - the "me" generation

[Woodmonkey]

I see that the "Me" Generation is alive and well and wanting something for nothing. I am not completely enamored with our schools, but believe in public education - ignorance is expensive.

A School District With Low Taxes and No Schools


Patrick Flynn led a successful drive to avoid paying higher property taxes by creating a school district that would have no schools or students.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Feb. 13 — Just to be clear, Patrick Flynn says he loves public education. He just does not like the idea of paying for it.

Casey Perkins and her daughter Marietta, who live in Troon. Marietta attends school in Scottsdale.

So when it came time last November for the expanding, unincorporated desert community of Troon to choose between joining a nearby school district, and paying higher property taxes to help finance it, or starting its own, Mr. Flynn led the movement that created the Christopher Verde School District.

Not that the Christopher Verde district will have any schools, teachers or, apparently, students.

The children of Troon will continue to attend nearby schools. And thanks to a loophole in Arizona law, the grown-ups of Troon will continue to avoid paying property taxes in those districts, which makes officials in the districts less than mirthful.

“The whole purpose of this was to avoid taxes on their million-dollar homes,” said State Senator Linda Gray, a Republican who has sponsored a bill to prevent the formation of a school district without schools. (Ms. Gray conceded that there was at least one Flynn supporter who had “a half-million-dollar home.”)

Beginning in the next school year, Troon students will now pay tuition to the school district they attend, and that money will come from part of the property taxes collected by the new Christopher Verde district.

Even if Ms. Gray’s bill, which the Senate passed last month, becomes law, the taxpayers of Troon will not be affected. The legislation would not be retroactive.

“I am happy,” said Mr. Flynn, the president of a homeowners group in the area, which, he emphasized, had nothing to do with his opposition to higher property taxes.

The quandary over what to do with the roughly 450 public school children in Troon and adjacent Rio Verde essentially pits older homeowners in a place best known for its excellent golfing against young families who are part of this rapidly expanding area in North Scottsdale.

“By forming our own school district, the children will be educated by the schools they choose, and the residents will keep their tax rate the same,” said Mr. Flynn, a retired salesman whose children are grown.

Casey Perkins, a parent with a young child, disagreed. “I am willing to pay for my own child,” Ms. Perkins said. “I am paying Social Security, and I am never going to see it. But both are part of living in our society.”

It is a face-off increasingly common across Arizona.

“The population and housing explosion of the past decade or so here has been driven by younger families, rather than by the traditional model of sun-seeking retirees from the Midwest or Canada,” said Stephen K. Doig, a census expert at Arizona State University.

“Arizona is seeing more of the traditional battle of the generations,” Mr. Doig said, “between some retirees who want taxes — including school taxes — kept low, and most parents who want better support for the schools their kids attend.”

Under the state’s open-enrollment law, children may attend any public school, provided it has space. Children living in unincorporated areas with no schools of their own have traditionally been assigned to schools by neighboring districts.

Those children often had to attend schools 20 miles from their homes because the districts tended to give priority to families living — and paying taxes — in the district. When Ms. Perkins went to enroll her daughter in kindergarten in Scottsdale and realized that her child would be bused miles from home, Ms. Perkins said she was told by a district administrator, “Let’s face the facts, you are not paying your fair share.”

The Legislature enacted a law in 2005 to remedy the matter, obligating unincorporated areas with more than 150 students either to be absorbed by an adjoining school district or to create their own.

So when the question was put on the ballot here in November, voters narrowly favored creating a district instead of joining the closest existing district, Cave Creek Unified, where a majority of the Troon and Rio Verde children attend classes.

The outcome essentially prevented a doubling of property taxes (to $1,190 from $590 on houses assessed at $500,000) — at least during the first year — and the secondary taxes assessed to build and maintain schools, since, well, there would not be any in Christopher Verde, as was made clear during the campaign.

Homeowners in the new district will pay about $1.80 per $100 of valuation on their homes, compared with the $1.70 they paid to the county before the vote to create the district. Homeowners in the Cave Creek district pay a little more than $2.50 per $100 in base taxes, and just over $1 more per $100 in secondary taxes.

Cave Creek schools have more than 250 children from the unincorporated areas of Troon and Rio Verde, a growing percentage of the district’s population of roughly 6,000 children, said Kent Frison, an associate superintendent for the district.

“From that perspective, the taxpayers of the school district, they feel it is inequitable,” Mr. Frison said.

There will be some redress. Because Christopher Verde is now a formal school district, children there will be required to pay tuition when they attend schools in other districts. The Christopher Verde School Board will negotiate the tuition rates and try to have a voice in the administration of the nearby districts.

Mr. Flynn has not applied for a seat on the new board. “I think I can do a better job on the outside just keeping my eyes on them,” he said.

Ms. Perkins is also moving on. “It really ripped our community,” she said of the battle over creating the district.

“We have to deal with the cards we are dealt,” Ms. Perkins said. “We have to make sure our children are taken care of, too.”

The Source

[herbstin]

I applaud their action. I think they may have gotten a very good situation in place for themselves.

The article says that, since they are now a school district, students must pay a tuition to the schools they attend outside of the district, so those schools are getting their money.

By not having their own schools, they avoid being saddled with the "professional, permanent school administrators (read: politicians), the union mandated teachers, some of whom may be of dubious ability, and all of the other strap-hangers that come with the first two.

They will now be able to set their own property school tax rates, and not be held hostage to another district that might want a lot more money to fund projects that only the school wants, not what the public or parents want.

They have bought themselves time to make a long term plan for an independent school system that is not under the mandated thumb of useless organisations like the NEA. (If they want such a system, and if such a system is possible).



Living on a ranch in the rural area of my county, I am fortunate that I fall under a small town school district, one that prides itself on being somewhat conservative, where they insure that the students have a firm grasp of the basics (3 Rs) and essential life skills. If I lived just a few miles north, I would have fallen in to the school district of a much larger city, which seems to believe that things like anti-gun marches and "We love the UN" days are far more important than things like the kids actually being able to make change without a calculator, or reading a real book.

[Woodmonkey]

Originally Posted by herbstin

I applaud their action. I think they may have gotten a very good situation in place for themselves.

The article says that, since they are now a school district, students must pay a tuition to the schools they attend outside of the district, so those schools are getting their money.

By not having their own schools, they avoid being saddled with the "professional, permanent school administrators (read: politicians), the union mandated teachers, some of whom may be of dubious ability, and all of the other strap-hangers that come with the first two.

They will now be able to set their own property school tax rates, and not be held hostage to another district that might want a lot more money to fund projects that only the school wants, not what the public or parents want.

They have bought themselves time to make a long term plan for an independent school system that is not under the mandated thumb of useless organisations like the NEA. (If they want such a system, and if such a system is possible).



Living on a ranch in the rural area of my county, I am fortunate that I fall under a small town school district, one that prides itself on being somewhat conservative, where they insure that the students have a firm grasp of the basics (3 Rs) and essential life skills. If I lived just a few miles north, I would have fallen in to the school district of a much larger city, which seems to believe that things like anti-gun marches and "We love the UN" days are far more important than things like the kids actually being able to make change without a calculator, or reading a real book.

What about the parents of kids living in that "school district" who have to pay for non-schools and then have to pay out of district fees to send their kids to schools? IMO, this is not right

[Carnage_59]

Around the suburban DC area, the teachers and administrators are so highly paid (from the heavy taxes we have to pay) that public school teachers in Fairfax County and Loudoun County, Virginia make more than engineers, and sometimes medical doctors!!!!

If one looks at the stats on teacher pay and benefits TODAY, you'll see they are in the top 7% of paid professionals.

Can't fire 'em unless they commit a crime, no matter how incompetent they are.

School boards are a joke, they're as useless as testicles on a heifer. I'm sick and tired of paying for overpaid, overprotected and unaccountable publik skuul teechers.

[Woodmonkey]

That's a whole other problem, Tom, and it would be fixed if people would only unite and fight the unions and the Administrations that cave in when contract time comes around.

Most schools are drastically overstaffed with Admin and other highly paid positions. What do they cut though when they're trying to show fiscal responsibility? The custodians when 4 or 5 custodians make as much as one overpaid Admin or consultant.