Speakeasy forum: School funding

but my property taxes have gone up 6X. Something has to give. It's largely for schools but huge increases have also come for children's and mental health services as well as for programs for the developmentally disabled. Some programs were once bundled but now individually split and seek their own regular levies. I'm sure all of these are important but it seems these services always need more than they have and always tell us that problems are getting worse and not better. I've no solution for you but maybe misery does love company.

I'm within city limits in a sub-division near the big university here. There's no place to grow. All I know is that if I multiply what I paid by 3, that's the approximate price homes are selling for in the sub division. If I divide this past year's tax bill by 6, it's very close to the first tax bill I paid 35 years ago. We weren't as greatly affected by the skyrocketing housing costs and didn't feel the bomb blast when the thing came to earth. In that regard, I guess I should be thankful. But since you mentioned schools, that hit a bit of a sore point with me. You may have heard of the data "scrubbing" going on these past years in Ohio. I live very near the main data system where the cooking of the books happened. It's located in a school that closed many years ago as demographics changed here. Basically, attendance numbers, grades and such were creatively manipulated to produce higher performance numbers than were actually achieved. Schools get funding partially based on attendance so some were getting money for more students than were actually there. As you probably know, the city school systems have huge problems of other kinds that are affecting the education of its students. This probably means that higher achievement scores are phony as well. Good PR is important when schools ask for more money from homeowners and they need to show what a great job they are doing. The discovery of these phony testing scores and non-existent students has created quite a problem with voters who were about to be asked for a substantial increase in school funding via another levy. The levy is on hold for now so I don't need to feel guilty for already wanting to vote "NO".

Well that "scrubbing" has hit here too or rather the big city. The local schools aren't that involved and pretty much rural and isn't effected. It's not like there's a bunch of schools to switch around, it's your basic school system. 1-HS, 1-MS and elementary(if not combined). As for scrubbing, again it's all about the $ since the funding is needed one way or another and they don't want to lose any. Of course, the Ohio level side of it wants it going where it suppose to and reduce any conflicts or more required funding or something like that. it seems all those regs and requirements are more paper pushing until someone really looks at it. The school anywhere is cash cow depending who gets what. It generates alot of levies and/or tax increases and never goes away. Sometimes, I wish the old 1 room school house were still here. -----Willy