Dear Editor,
The Columbia County Board of Education is in the final phase of consideration for setting a new millage rate for county taxpayers. What has been proposed to the board by the superintendent is a small cut in the current millage rate and placing “excess funds” into the building fund (This has the appearance of a cut, but raises taxes and raises them in excess of the budget). The proposal is wrong headed and the board should reject it. The reason is straightforward.
Building projects are planned in advance, and the county residents have long approved a generous 1% addition to sales tax specifically for those projects. With even modest increases in sales tax revenue there should be plenty of funds from sales tax to cover projects, and if that 1% doesn’t cover plans, maybe it’s the plans that need rethinking (schools don’t have to be palaces of education for kids to learn). Earlier this year, the board worked with the superintendent to set a budget. Like other recent budgets, they assumed a generous 5% year-on-year increase and worked to that figure. The budget was debated and approved by the board. With property values now out, the board has a responsibility to set the millage rate to the appropriate level to meet their budget.
When property assessments came back higher than many expected, the district saw dollar signs and is seeking to take advantage of those values by rummaging a bit deeper into taxpayers pockets than they thought they might get to. It’s a grubby $10-million money grab and an abandonment of their responsibilities to plan and budget. It’s certainly not fiscally conservative.
Well meaning, but poorly thought out? Maybe, if we’re being charitable. Does anyone believe they’d re-open the budget to make cuts if property values fell? The right thing to do is to do the simple math of making the millage rate fit the budget. Anything more is simple government theft. I hope the board will remember their responsibility to the residents, and not again act as a rubber stamp for our school administrators.
Eric Feldkamp
Martinez, Ga.
