As of last week a group of disgruntled citizens has collected 52 pages of signatures calling for an election if the school district’s need for funding to build a new consolidated high school exceeds the 4 percent from the previous year.
Those pages represent ten signatures each, or about 500 signatures. It has been stated that 57 percent of Simpson County voters voted against the bond issue to finance a school consolidation in March. It was actually 57 percent of those who turned out to vote, which was only 3,824 of the 15,000 registered voters.
The Simpson countians who opposed the bond issue won, but to say it was 57 percent of the voters is misleading.
The same way, you may say, “90 percent of the people I discuss the consolidation issue with are against consolidation.” If I only spoke to a small group of folks, I could find people who think the same way I do, but that is only a generalization. To present a small sampling as the “truth” is also misleading. However, when you add some people’s objections to not being allowed input into school board decisions which may raise taxes, you likely increase the number of people who oppose that board’s plans.
We understand if you don’t have children in the school system you may not support increasing taxes for public schools either.
The funding process has not always been this way, but it is now, thanks to Governor William Winter. Currently, a school district can tax up to 55 mills for support of the schools. We are at 42 mills for the schools and another 2.5 mills for maintenance for a total of 44-44.5 mills in support of public education. Depending on where you live in the county a mill is valued at between $180,000 and $200,000 per year. This is determined by living in a municipality where the city government provides services, which determines the millage rate.
There is a bit of smoke in mirrors when it comes to budgeting. The schools do not request millage, they request dollar amounts. So if valuation increases the millage may stay the same but the value of a mill increases, creating more funding.
The school board can automatically raise their budget up to 4 percent each year without calling for action. If that rate is between 4 and 7 percent, a referendum can be called and that is what is currently being done through the petition process despite the fact that the district does not plan to raise taxes over 4 percent.
The opposition’s logic is that if the amount exceeds 4 percent they can press their petitions into cause for a referendum and leave that decision to the voters. With inflation levels leading to skyrocketing prices, the opposition feels that the high school can not be built without exceeding the 4 percent annual increases. The only problem is that petitions are only good for a certain length of time, which calls into question the validity of the petition.
The group of objectors, Thomas Ray Floyd, Ray Floyd, Lee McCoy and Jason McCoy, filed a petition in court that the school board could not have the increase to fund the new consolidated school. Judge Stan Sorey said they could appeal the action in a higher court, which will ultimately end in the Mississippi Supreme Court should they choose to hear the matter. Now the district is tied up in this matter and will have to continue to pay court costs associated with the case, not to mention the increase in material and inflation costs. The petitioners are acting within their rights but it is at the expense of our public school system.
At last week’s school board meeting SCSD Superintendent Holloway commented that if we went back to the Leave it to Beaver era, the only thing that would be the same would be the schools, the way they look and the way they do business.
We can do better than that.
