Terry Oblander of the Cleveland Plain Dealer has an article in this Sunday's edition in which he raises the question of whether Medina County will start a trend of counties enacting sales tax increases to fund schools. The article suggests that it probably won't happen, although it is possible that the county commissioners' organization will seek legislation to raise the amount of money counties can collect in sales taxes.
Right now counties can collect up to 1.5% on top of what the state charges. What Medina County did was to pass a sales tax for capital improvements with the understanding that only schools will benefit from the sales tax. There are legal questions as to whether you can require that a county capital improvements board just fund school projects with the funds.
Right now, this problem won't come up because the people appointed to the new Medina County board are pledged to use the money just for school projects. The question remains, though, whether future county commissioners will only appoint such members. The thinking is that they will, but thre is no legal requirement that they do so.
The article also points out that Medina County has shopping districts that bring in residents from other counties. One selling point was that other counties' residents will be helping fund Medina County's schools. Since we live in Medina County we are all for that, but how many counties can effectively make that argument?
Oblander's bottom line seems to be that while this tax increase is good for Medina County, and could lead to lower property taxes in Medina County, it is not likely to be adopted by a lot of other counties.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
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Actually, the Medina County Commissioners stacked the Capital Improvement Board (for now) with individuals predisposed to merely rubber stamp the schools' desires with little more than a demand that the schools show their attendance records (driver of behavior).
What will see is that the Medina County schools will have a "race for space" since they are rewarded for student headcount under the Capital Improvement Board's math formula. In fact, Medina City schools launched a project to attract the "home school" option kids since their absence from the system costs the school state and federal dollars.
Hmm ... ain't this the same school that complained about the kids learning in trailers? Wouldn't you expect the school officials to want a slight reduction in headcount to ease the burden on facility assets?
Of course - not when we have money to make and spend.
On the other hand, we have heard less than less about cost reduction initiatives at the school - I guess we can thank the Board of Education for that lack of oversight.
What baffles me is how did textbooks become a permanent improvement type asset when their replacement is almost mandated by the State (see S.B. 412)?
Will the school buy twice as many books now than before given the extra money?
Don't bet on it as we have the teacher contract up for renewal this year.
I say it is time to put up some real options for the Board of Education and seek to challenge the Improvement Board to do something besides vote to approve buying more books.
What Medina County did was to pass a sales tax for capital improvements with the understanding that only schools will benefit from the sales tax. There are legal questions as to whether you can require that a county capital improvements board just fund school projects with the funds.
Right now, this problem won't come up because the people appointed to the new Medina County board are pledged to use the money just for school projects. The question remains, though, whether future county commissioners will only appoint such members. The thinking is that they will, but thre is no legal requirement that they do so.
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