Just a thought for our school board to ponder. In the past twelve month's many of us working class people have gotten our annual pay raise, many on the average of 3 to 4%. Now, for fun, lets do the math. If I make $50,000 a year, I just received a $1,500.00 pay raise. In a 28% tax bracket that means an individual would realize a net $1,080 increase for the year. Divide that by 12 (month's in the year) that means the monthly income went up $90.00 or $45 dollars on a bi-weekly pay. Now the real story, I used to fill my car up to drive to work for $35 a week at $1.75 a gallon for gas. With gas at $3.99 a gallon it now cost me $80.00 to fill the same gas tank for the same period. OK, so you say so what? Well if you remember the first calculation I did was on the pay increase which came to $90.00 a month, with the gasoline increase alone I am now spending $80.00 a week or $320.00 a month versus the $140.00 a month. That is a 228% increase in my fuel cost alone, so much for that $90 a month increase. Now, the School board is threatening my child with no bussing, play to pay fees and other reductions in the teaching force to try and force me to vote for their school levy.
Well, I would like to say this, you can have my $90.00 a month pay increase if it will help, but you will have to talk to the oil companies to get it out of their windfall profits, or maybe you could take it out of the increase cost of our food, or Electric, Water or Gas. Because you see people on the school board, there just isn't enough money to go around, and giving you an additional $200 to 300+ dollars of tax money makes the more important things like having a home, lighting it, keeping it warm in the winter and safe for my family has to take precedence over your million dollar school dome, or other frivolous spending. I guess maybe we should pass a levy, that levy states that you get a 3% increase every school year and you have to live within your means just like the rest of us. Also giving you your levy also takes some of my tax money I may want to give to the Police Department or Fire Department who provide important services that unfortunately your school is cheating our children out of. Maybe we need some new people in there who can better manage the dollars and look for other ways of funding some of these activities. This way our kids can get back to the basics of education, in a brick building that doesn't rival the University of Akron Campus.
You need to understand there is a big difference between building a "state of the art" facility and the one that you built. State of the Art is in the technology that is integrated within the structure, not by building the largest building in the area to keep up with Stow-Munroe Falls or other schools like them. And, answer the citizens of Tallmadge who have asked this question. "What does a million dollar dome have to do with the quality of education our kids receive?" or better yet, "what does it have to do with improving the technology, what State of the Art function does it serve?" Is it a new power source to reduce the cost of operating the school?, Does it somehow reduce the cooling or heating costs of the school? I believe the answer to all of these questions is NO, it adds nothing to the education or the technology.
I graduated from this school some thirty years ago and nothing has changed, the brow beating and threats continue to try and get levy's passed. I wish we could find some true business people to run our schools who know how to budget money, spend it wisely and effectively finance the business of educating our children. I know our great teachers do a superb job in their positions, I wish the school board could say the same.
Signed,
Joseph Lacey Jr
Class of 79