Useful Links

Breedlove · 03-20-2019, 12:58 PM

Our son is out of school we paid , but now why should I pay school taxes . I have a nephew and niece as teachers in Houston and he tells me about the wasted money . Look at our football stadiums . We pay taxes so our HS kids can play sports in a palace . HS football coaches make 200K a year and don't have to teach a class . I will say it loud money does not produce smarter students or better schools . It just produces more corruption . I pay 500.00 a year for school taxes , very little and I will put our students in our HS against any in the nation . Why ….because our parents participate . This is a quote from a teacher in our district . She used to be a teacher in San Francisco.

kjpliny · 03-20-2019, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beowulf

"If you want to talk about financial injustice, how about a child-free couple paying $15k per year in property taxes (70% of which is school taxes) over 30 years of home ownership? What is the return on that investment?

Did you and your spouse go to public schools? Did you and your spouse receive educations that allowed you to succeed in life? Are you forced to live in the taxing jurisdiction you are in now? That's not injustice. It's was your choice to live where you live knowing that the property taxes are high. You could always move to #50 on the education scale in the US - Mississippi - and pay very low property taxes. Or the Phoenix, AZ area, where a $500K home pays about $2,500 a year in property taxes. Nearly all of us have the freedom to choose where we live. Obviously, you chose poorly.

Not really...we love where we live and we certainly wouldn’t be able to have the jobs/income we enjoy if we were in Arizona or some other low cost of living area. We don’t need to like the high taxes though. Once we retire, we’ll have the option to move on.

CardsFan · 03-20-2019, 04:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ziggy29

As someone without children, I used to think it was a travesty that I had to pay as much in property taxes as someone with 6 children. But then at some point, besides not wanting to live in an undereducated society, I decided to look at school taxes as my repayment for the education I received rather than my subsidizing everyone else's kids. That has been good for my mental health.

Bingo! We have one child. We moved to a high tax school district because of the quality of education. We have since moved to a different area, but I have no problems paying to educate the young folks in our area.

Though, I do sometimes worry about WHAT they are being taught.

beowulf · 03-20-2019, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kjpliny

Not really...we love where we live and we certainly wouldn’t be able to have the jobs/income we enjoy if we were in Arizona or some other low cost of living area. We don’t need to like the high taxes though. Once we retire, we’ll have the option to move on.

You always have the option to move on. You choose not to. You can like or not like high taxes, but complaining about them and not taking action to find a place with lower RE taxes is hot air. You can vote two ways - one at the ballot box, the other with your feet. One reason you probably won't move is you love what the area offers, which is derived from your local taxes. You can't have it both ways. BTW, you wouldn't need such a high income if you move to a LCOL location.

kjpliny · 03-21-2019, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beowulf

You always have the option to move on. You choose not to.

For most people that may be true, but it's not really a practical option for us. Wife is a tenured teacher with 5 more years to go until full pension. Since this is the single biggest asset in our retirement portfolio, we're not about to give that up for some lower taxes elsewhere. As I said before, we'll have relocation options once we retire.

Chuckanut · 08-11-2019, 09:36 AM

Here's one proposal to 'fix' the Illinois pension system:

https://reason.com/2019/08/11/illino...adam-schuster/

One quote below, but you really need to read the entire article to get a good feel for what the author is talking about.

Quote:

Q: What is the short version of your plan?
A: It would amend our constitution so that instead of protecting the future growth rate, it would only protect the pension benefit that somebody has earned to date. So if you retired today, your annuity would be protected, but it would give the legislature flexibility to change retirement ages for younger workers and to change that 3 percent cost of living adjustment, for example.

beowulf · 08-11-2019, 09:55 AM

Good article in Reason. Essentially what’s being proposed is what has already happened to federal employees. Depending on when you started federal employment, there are 3 different pension plans. And a fourth will be rolled out in the next few years. Lots of states and cities have done this. Why not Illinois? The answer is obvious. Not fear of the voters, fear of the unions.

Mr._Graybeard · 08-11-2019, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breedlove

Our son is out of school we paid , but now why should I pay school taxes . I have a nephew and niece as teachers in Houston and he tells me about the wasted money . Look at our football stadiums . We pay taxes so our HS kids can play sports in a palace . HS football coaches make 200K a year and don't have to teach a class . I will say it loud money does not produce smarter students or better schools . It just produces more corruption . I pay 500.00 a year for school taxes , very little and I will put our students in our HS against any in the nation . Why ….because our parents participate . This is a quote from a teacher in our district . She used to be a teacher in San Francisco.

Viewing from a distance, high school football in Texas seems pretty extravagant. But in our area, the football programs get a lot of financial support from booster groups that run fund drives to pay for uniforms, bleachers, etc. Is that not also the case in Texas?

I did a quick Google and found this handbook for the booster club in the Lake Travis school district. It suggests that it pays for the bulk of the school district's football program. I don't know if that's true, but it's the way it works up here.