Taxed off the farm
Written for the High Plains Journal
The king of my home state of Nebraska has gathered up his court and is looking to create a legacy instead of doing what is best for the taxpayers of Nebraska. It has become glaringly apparent that most people throughout the Heartland of America know that we have a Property Tax problem. Gov Pillen called a special legislative session to “fix” the Property Tax problem but it turns out their “fix” is just a shift not a cure.
One week ago in Loup City, NE we hosted a problem-solving meeting on the subject of property taxes and local spending. The information presented by three sitting County Commissioners from other counties was outstanding. All who attended told me they truly got valuable information on the problem at hand and it assisted them in generating thoughts toward real solutions.
L. Wayne Johnson, current County Supervisor Chair from Clay County, NE, did a great job informing folks how to find information on where the tax money you pay is spent. As a result, I went to the NE Dept of Revenue website and with the Dashboard I was able to determine that 72% of my property taxes go to fund the school and 26% goes to fund the county government. For the record, the numbers are also on your tax statement with a little bit of math.
Throughout the Great Plains and most of the heart of America, it would be the case that property taxes fund the public school system. Present at our meeting was the Loup City Public School Superintendent so I did ask him to speak about the money spent in our school. Yet what happened in the school board meeting 5 days later illustrates the true problem we have and why what is happening at the state capital to “fix” the problem won’t work.
For the last school year, the state provided each school with $1500 per student. In fact, Loup City Schools went from state aid of $29,000 to $460,000 in one year. The problem being that the cost of educating a student in Nebraska jumped from $14,000 to $17,526 in the same year. Yes, on average every school in the state increased their spending by twice the amount of money the state aid provided. Loup City, on the other hand, leaped to an average cost per student of $24,978.
The most troubling in that number is the fact that a school with an enrollment of less than 300 students has 4 administrators including 3 principals and the superintendent. The total cost of that is $550,000 or $1650 per student. WHY?
Not only do we have 4 administrators but one of those principals has been in place for only one year and the board voted 5-4 to keep the Elementary Principal and give her a raise at the same time they placed her on an “Improvement plan.” Folks, this school does not need more than two good administrators, just two that want to create a healthy teaching and learning environment.
At the end of the day, I only see one “fix” for this problem. When the taxpayers have finally had enough, we will hold those spending the money accountable. The other issue with runaway property tax problems that no one is addressing at all is the property assessments. The state can place all the caps on tax increases they want to but as long as the land is increasing in value at an alarming rate, it will push people to sell their land instead of producing food.
I realize I have shared a Nebraska situation with you here, but I know for a fact that every state is currently struggling with how to go forward on this tax issue. The answer is pretty clear to me: we need less spending and folks have become drunk with services, but every drunk runs out of money at some point, and we are there now.