School Insider "SURVEY SAYS" (Part 2): Bigger Bank Account for Big Government. Smaller Bank Account for You! Bartow School Budget Meeting 5:30, Monday, 6/17.

Also, More spending.

Jun 17, 2024

By David McKalip, M.D.

The School Board is set to do their final approval on the 2024-2025 Bartow County School Budget on Monday 6/17 at 5:30. Part 2 of this blog post finishes the analysis of the survey taken of school system insiders who - gasp - support increased spending and higher taxes. No surprise there. What is not a surprise is that the school system did NOT survey taxpaying-citizens without this conflict of interest.

Editor’s note: Please come to the Bartow School Board meeting will be a 5:30 pm for the Monday, 6/17 Budger Hearing #2. Please come by 5:15 to sign up to speak if able. Yours truly can’t attend due to an important, personal, prior commitment, so GOD SPEED! The meeting is at 65 Gilreath Rd.

Massive Budget Hike “Justified” With Self-Serving Insider Survey

The Budget includes an additional $32.3 million in Spending and will increase property taxes.

But much of some of that increased spending is not even going to current services.

It is going in the bank for the School System.

They want to continue to grow their obscenely enormous reserve fund for “future needs”. They want to make sure they have $108 million in the bank at the end of 2025! These alleged future needs likely include building more schools based on potential population increases. Yet the school system has not released any data or plans that would support this. They are likely planning on an increased population from workers at the local Hyundai and Q-Cells plants. But that is no guarantee. Also, with birth rates falling, it is unclear whether the number of children will continue to grow at all.

Growing the Reserves Now Before Possible Property Tax Cuts.

The Reserve funds are dollars kept in the bank account of the government-run schools. As shown below, these reserve funds have reached enormous levels over the last few years. The government is moving these dollars out of YOUR bank account and into their bank account. They are doing it with general property tax money that is usually directed at operating the school system.

They have stated they are planning for future capital spending - that means new buildings, land and building upgrades. That spending is paid for with SPLOST funds, a voter approved local sales tax that is designated ONLY for capital projects. Many folk are being taxed extra NOW to pay for future projects because the system wants to get that money in the bank account before some things happen in the future. As people age and qualify for higher senior citizens exemptions. As an expected referendum passes that limits future growth of property valuations (this fall). (However that “lost” income will be replaced by an increased sales tax! Also, citizen just raised our homestead exemption on the ballot to $15,000. So the school system wants to soak the taxpayers as much as possible now to pad their bank accounts before property tax is not quite as lucrative as it has been to this point.

This money grab is just pure, cynical chicanery by the school system to move money from your bank accounts to theirs while they still can. The school insiders support it in their survey, and the system is using this survey to justify their money grab. But they won’t bother to survey the actual tax-paying citizens who do not have a conflict of interest based on school affiliation.

Remainder of the Survey

The rest of the self-serving survey of school system insiders continues with more support of increased spending on themselves. The results speak for themselves and are below. In sum, these insiders want more money to pay substitute teachers. They want to enhance athletic facilities at High Schools with “indoor multi-use sports facilities”. Some of the system unity disappeared here since folks from schools that were NOT High Schools were less supportive (they would like the money for themselves). Finally, those surveyed generally wanted to increase the monthly stipend to school board members. Apparently having 4/5 school board members rubberstamp everything the Superintendent wants is worth $500/month, not $50/meeting. (Odd that one Board member had “no opinion” and one supported a raise. Three did not seem to support this).