Do The Math. All Referendums

Courtesy of The O Zone

You hear the handle turn, you here the wheels start to grind.. and then the sound.. the awful sound begins to screech… “Your taxes are going up; we can’t pay more money… Vote NO. It’s outrageous to pay more in taxes… Cut Administrators.. Blah, blah, blah”…and then the sound gets softer and softer and fades quieter and quieter into silence until the next person turns the handle and …”Your taxes are going up… we can’t…..”

And it’s a very small tiny ridiculously low amount of people who believe this crap. .. but they are highly motivated to vote.. Why?  Because they get $15 dollars a hour to hand out pamphlets, call radio stations, and write letters to the editor… They are hired by large landowners, the developers…

The developers own thousands of acres. Just $200 an acre costs them  a minimum of $200,000 dollars a year.. But, they are making hundreds of million each single year so that much money is still like losing a penny to us… But they still pay people to squawk.

The estimated average is that the increase will be around $237 a year… That means that half of the people who can afford to, will pay higher than that amount and half those who are living on tight incomes, will pay less….

Most houses sell for $240, 000 but they are assessed at 1974 levels.. Which means $60,000 for the above if an older house..   At $60,000 assessment, the current tax is $852 per year.   (Go to that site if you know your assessed value),  Your new tax will be roughly $180 dollars more… Divide that by month, it is  $15.00 more you will find added to your escrow when you pay your mortgage…

If your house is at $100,000, and the 1974 assessment is $30,000, the current tax is $426 and the increase will be $90 more per year or $7.50 per month…

If you rent, this referendum costs you absolutely nothing..

If you are on the high end and have a house assessed at $500,000, your current assessment is $7,100… Your new assessment will be $8,600 ($1,500 more).  That huge (cough, cough) jump puts you at an increase of $125 a month. Which it you own a $500,000 house, your cost increase is less than normal utility fluctations…  Big deal.

So all the screaming is not from little people owning house, unless they got whipped up by someone with big money… The screaming is by the huge landowners who lease property…

But local real-estate experts insist that good schools DO lead to higher property values, and several studies done in other cities have found strong correlations between highly performing schools and higher house prices.

So defeating the referendum can cost your home to plummet in value by $120,000 balanced against voting “no” you saving your pocketbook $15.00 a month…

It is past time to raise revenue for schools.  Many have gone years with no increase, yet costs increase every year. Just as your costs have increased, so have those of all schools. All districts must continue having referenda as often as possible until a “yes” vote occurs, simply because they are out of money.  Referenda are the only way districts can increase revenues.  Christina for example this year cut 90 teachers and raised.class sizes from 20 to 30 per class.  That does not bode well for better learning. it does not bode well for your children….

That makes this a no-brainer.  Vote Yes for the referendum…

I forgot to tell you something… Even though at the top I said these “NO” voters were a small sliver of the population,… they all vote.  And even though parents of school children can easily overwhelm them 1,000 to one, they don’t every referendum because only 5000 of those 50,000 parents supporting children even bother to go out and vote… Just 6000 “NO” votes were able to derail the last referendum, because only 5000 yes votes bothered to show up…

If you don’t vote, the no’s win… That simple. Everybody who cares about Delaware, needs to vote to make Christina District a better place for all.

Bottom line, this extra tax is not a burden and you have so much benefit to gain for your yes vote.  Don’t be dissuaded from voting in YOUR best interest by some fly-by-election-night outfit that is paid for, owned, and controlled by the wealthy landed class of citizens who can easily afford to give up billions for our schools, but cry over giving up 30 additional cents per $100 dollars of assessed value… For a nice $200,000 home, you pay $15.00 a month more for the privilege of living in a district with great schools…

People lie, lie, lie… Math never does.