Sincere Thanks To The County Commission - And Response

  • Friday, May 22, 2015

It seems good government can raise its head every once in a while, so we must thank our County Commissioners for listening to the voice of the vast majority of the taxpayers, and not buying what Superintendent Rick Smith was selling last Wednesday as he pitched his tax increase. 

The "it's for the children" ploy didn't work so far this time, so I guess our high-paid superintendent, administrators, and staff will have to earn what we already pay them to do - raise the education levels of our kids, with the $100 million and the added $5 million from last year that you have been given. 

With only a six percent increase in enrollments, and several schools operating at less than 50 percent capacity, they should do as Commissioner Warren Mackey said (April 22, 2013 Chattanoogan) - use their existing budget to raise student test scores instead of worrying about building more schools.

Most teachers and the informed voters at large will tell you that we have a bloated bureaucracy at the top.  They always seem to demand more money as the "end all to be all" answer to poor management.  If we could reward the hard-working teachers with merit pay raises, I know the folks would be for it.  Unfortunately, teacher union protection would reward the few sorry teachers and our top-heavy administrative staff with money as well,money that always seems to leave our teachers at the bottom of the trough.

Mrs. Horn, Ralph Miller, and all the other "lattee" drinkers, how about working with our cash-strapped taxpayers who are demanding better results for our money.  Put the vastly overfunded "rainy day fund" to work like, oh, I don't know, maybe like buying the much-needed computers for our schools with some of that money, or maybe fix a leaking roof or two.

By the way, Mayor Coppinger, the $39 million surplus in the "rainy day fund" far exceeds the amount needed to maintain our AAA bond rating. Come back to us for more money when you can show us more than 19-21 percent of our graduates (zero in two high schools) in some of our schools that can pass the SAT test. Or that we have raised our schools to the levels achieved in so many other countries - countries that are less well off than America and do so much more with less, and demand more for their children.

Once again, Thank You, Commissioners, for standing up to the strapped taxpayers who put all of you in office.

Bill Reesor

Ooltewah

* * *

Mr. Reesor: I don't drink lattee with Mrs. Horn, Mr. Smith or anyone else. I prefer Cafe au lait, beignets and jazz.

But seriously, the headline on Chattanoogan.com proves the very point I recently wrote about.

The EPB is asking their board for a 3.5 percent rate increase. The EPB, unlike the county schools, doesn't have to ask voters or government officials who run on platforms of no new taxes for permission to raise their rates.

The county schools have to pay these and other increases for which they have no alternatives. To save money, they can't just cut jobs or say, English, because hardly anybody really liked taking it.

So where should the money for these and other increases come from? Maybe they could have bake sales and lattee stands at ball games. Everybody likes coming to ball games.

Ralph Miller

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