Comments on: THIS IS NOT A BILL – DO NOT PAY

By: Under The Dome » Your Overall Tax BURDEN–Fees Included

Under The Dome » Your Overall Tax BURDEN–Fees Included — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 16:54:43 +0000

[...] Just A Thought: Has the Utah Taxpayer’s Association also included Constitutionally approved Secondary Education Fees (grades 7 through 12) as part of the overall Tax/Fee burden computation? Remember this POST?! Just try to get your students’ grades if you haven’t paid those fees! [...]

By: David Adamic

David Adamic — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:17:41 +0000

There’s no such thing as a free public education. When we’re talking government and free, we’re really talking WE. We all pay for public education. Some who are grown will complain that they are paying for the eduation of other’s children. I personally like to see it as repaying the system for the education it advanced me.

Unfortunately, when it comes to tax revenue, Utah is a relatively poor state. As such, we pay high taxes and underfund just about everything. I think the Utah Legislature does a good job of managing our needs and making sure that no single entity, clamoring for our tax money is too underfunded.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:43:45 +0000

I too am not a fan of many of the fees authorized by the legislature, particularly mandatory fees like “textbook usage.” Materials fees for wood shop or activity fees for sports participation are understandable, but fees for a basic public education are not something I support. Perhaps you wish to open a bill file?

On a related note, I find it interesting that while the Legislature is talking about cutting taxes, a good number of school districts are raising them at the ballot box, and the public is responding favorably. Poll after poll shows the public believes education is underfunded and would rather see increased education spending than substantial tax cuts.

By: craigfrank

craigfrank — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 22:10:12 +0000

Rep Dave Cox

Thanks for setting me straight. You are completely correct when you said 100% of our Personal Income Tax goes into Public AND Higher education. I guess, over the years, I’ve just considered all the dollars coming out of my wallet, in the form of taxes, to be public money (i.e. Public Education, Public Higher Education, Public Transportation, Public Welfare Programs, etc.). It all seems to be Public. Public education, whether it be K-12 or Higher Ed, recieves 100% of our Personal and Corporate Income Tax dollars.

HB 294 (2006 General Session), Sponsored by Rep. Jeff Alexander, created the “Education Fund,” a fund specifically designed to “recieve all revenues from taxes on intangible property or from a tax on income.” (See Long Title of HB294)

Line 58-59 states (Enrolled copy): “The Education Fund shall recieve all revenues from taxes on intangible property or from a tax on income and shall be designated for public [AND] higher education.”

There, with a few simple words, no more confusion as to how the money comes out of our pockets, up to the Tax Commission, into the Education Fund, and then either to Public Ed or Higher Ed. (Talkin’ about beatin’ a dead harse.)

Congratulations for being one of the lucky ones paying less for their ASD assessments. Mine will be going up $76.45 (6.48% increase). Maybe we can get together next time and swap checks and leave the Assessor out of this.

Craig.

By: David Cox

David Cox — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 00:10:11 +0000

I just did some calculations on my property tax. I noticed that while some entities had increases, Alpine District had a REDUCTION in property tax of almost 15% from last year, for me it was a $157.22 reduction. Also not all of the state income tax goes to public schools. A significant portion now goes to fund colleges. It is true that there has been a big increase since 1960. What is not mentioned with that is the even bigger growth in government requirements and societal problems. If we could take away all of those, we are probably putting in less money for the average student than we were then. While Alpine is asking for a bond election to build schools, it\’s too bad that impact fees can\’t be charged to fund that instead.
P.S. You have a real gift with words! Keep writing!

By: Jim Ferrin

Jim Ferrin — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 00:04:22 +0000

Six years of serving on the Public Education Appropriations Committee taught me this: 1. No matter what is appropriated to public ed, the public ed community will ALWAYS lobby for more money – it is what they do. 2. There is not enough tax money in the whole state of Utah to either satisfy the public ed community, or to bring about the excellence in education that we all desire. There is but one real, lasting solution – that is school choice – competition. When school administrators compete for their students and feel the rewards for winning that competition, great things can happen. We can see the results of that now in Utah, both in district and charter schools – and it is happening now, even within our existing budgets. Utah parents and schoolchildren need not despair. There really is a solution to our Utah education challenge. And it is working now. We just have to have the political courage to further embrace the solution.

By: Reach Upward

Reach Upward — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 13:48:59 +0000

And yet, education is perpetually “under funded.” Utah is consistently last place in how much per-pupil cash we toss into the system (as if that is any kind of important measure of the quality of education). And although per pupil costs have soared 450% (in real Dollars) since 1960, our kids constantly perform worse in the hard sciences than they did back then.

Gee, perhaps there is something wrong with the basic structure and culture of our industrial education complex, which, in Utah, is a huge monolythic monopoly that tenaciously fights against any measure that might loosen its autocratic grip.

Could it have anything to do with the massive expansion of middle management in our school disticts over the past 46 years? Or maybe a pay system that focuses on retaining long-term teachers at the expense of undervaluing beginning teachers? Or maybe a system that says it wants parental involvement, but then does everything in its power to prevent real, effective parental involvement? Hmmm.