The Onslaught is REAL

I've blogged and written about the "attack on public education" quite often over the past few years...probably too much, to be honest. Some people have labeled me as paranoid or just a hired gun that's trying to protect a cushy, easy job...to each their own.

I've received a death threat, nasty social media messages, vile emails, and hate letters in my mailbox. That's all fine and dandy because with each passing day, I become more and more convinced that the onslaught is real.

Yesterday was a perfect example. Governor Ricketts came to York for a "town hall meeting." During his informative talk, he spoke of the state's budget, plans for property tax relief, and ways to make Nebraska better for all of us. His speech was well done.

He didn't mention anything about York Public Schools during his talk to the crowd yesterday, although he has mentioned YPS in a negative light in these same speeches in Seward, Crete, and other locations. In previous speeches, he made the claim that York Public Schools misused the Qualified Capital Purpose Fund and we're an example of why that levy limit needed to be dropped from 5.2 cents to 3.0 cents with recent legislation.

His office didn't seem to know what all went in to our use of the QCPUF during YHS construction. They didn't know we worked with legal counsel and Ameritas Investments. I shared that info with his aide yesterday as we have nothing to hide. We had to access some already collected QCPUF funds because construction bids came in 20% higher than we were told they would. We had to keep our promise to taxpayers about the tax levy so we scrambled to make use of dollars we had access to without requesting additional tax money. We had to take out a 7-year lease agreement that we pay off with building fund dollars. It wasn't and isn't ideal but we were very transparent about it and shared a detailed update in the York News Time in March 2014.

Despite us having an average annual spending increase of just 1.5% over the past 8-years, he told a farmer in a one-on-one conversation after the meeting that York Public Schools spends too much money and that's why our local property taxes are so high. He chose to reference our spending increase between 2013-14 and 2014-15 when we increased spending by $1 million because of our construction "issues" at YHS, adding $250,000 worth of grant-funded early childhood programming, and finally spending a little bit of money on technology, curriculum updates, and vehicle replacements that had been pushed to the side for years. Yes, we did have a big spending increase in 2014-15. However, what was failed to be mentioned, was our 8-year average is 1.5% and we spent the same amount of money in 2015-16 as we did in 2014-15.

When an organization as large as YPS, which operates a $16.5 million budget, can average only 1.5% in average spending, they shouldn't be ridiculed. What is really sad is that we've been doing what the Governor wants the state to do. He talked about controlling spending and he's proud that the state has gone from 6% to 3.5% growth. We have controlled our spending and continue to do so. We're on pace to spend less in 2016-17 than we did in 2015-16, which was the same amount we spent in 2014-15.

Our average increase in annual revenue over the last eight years has been just 2% but due to declining state and federal monies, our local property tax request has gone up by an average of 8%. School Spending is NOT the reason we have high property taxes. The way our schools are funded is the culprit.

School spending is under attack. We're made out to be the bad guy because "the state doesn't levy property taxes." Well, when the state doesn't provide adequate funding for schools, they have no other choice but to levy property taxes. The state gladly lets soaring land valuation dollars replace the state's commitment to funding schools.

Even if YPS cut out another $1 million from our budget, that wouldn't solve our "property tax issue." Check this stat....if our property tax request for 2016-17 was $1 MILLION LESS than it really is, that would still be a 50% increase in the past seven years. Does that fix our over-reliance on property taxes? NO!

It's a funding problem and not a spending problem.