I must agree with Joe here for the most part. Vouchers are a good start. Several points worth clarifying.
1) Counties are funding local teachers across the state
2) Counties are funding teacher supplements
3) Counties are funding capital expenses
4) Counties are funding maintenance and utilities
5) Countes get sued by school boards (total waste as both sides’ legal costs are funded by property taxes)
6) Bonds are issued after public referendum after going through the county commission. COPs are issued by county commissioners without a public referendum. (This has no bearing on the school taxing authority)
Taxing based on kids is a bit too much theory to be practical, I would make the same argument for those using Medicaid, but it doesn’t work because the entire premise of taxation is a redistribution of wealth. All Counties would be doing is spending millions foreclosing on people’s houses that can’t afford the individual child tax.
Finally, the legislature limits how high property taxes can go. The limit is currently 1.54% or 1.55%. Scotland county is moving in on that target right now. If the Legislature were to allow school boards to tax, simply change the dynamic of the limit. School boards get .30 and counties can max out at 1.24 or 1.25. The same limits could stay in place. By having this debate we are really saying that the system is broke and needs to be fixed. Having taxing power, despite assertions to the contrary doesn’t mean that taxes always go up. Otherwise, the entire state would be sitting at $1.54.
There is already a strange law on the books that allows school boards to request “x” amount of the tax rate to go to them. The current limit is 20-cents. Explaining this law would lead to lots of furrowed brows, so I’ll leave it there for now.
