A Whip Trick To Save Lakota: The real reason behind the 2013 tax increase attempt
To state that Lakota, like most government schools these days, is operating as a deceptive enterprise built upon open manipulation of the taxpaying public and are dangerously malicious is not inaccurate. Lakota has said recently that without levy approval in the fall of 2013, the distinct “will” decline. Those are words from an Enquirer article featuring statements by Lakota Superintendent Karen Mantia who told the school board, “We have balanced our budget but now we’re at a baseline and that is not a good place to be.” This prompted school board president Joan Powell to declare, “We are in danger of becoming a second-class district.” Lakota and its administrators are pushing a 5.5 mill levy for the upcoming November 2013 ballot which will raise the taxes per $100,000 in evaluation by $192 based on the premise that they have cut, and cut, and cut till they can’t cut any more, and if they cut any more, every citizen in the district will suffer. Well, the Lakota members of the administration who have said these things are guilty of deception, manipulation, and malicious action, because there is a very important factor that they did not reveal to the public in these levy talks which they did discuss in the same newspapers at the start of the 2013 year. However the issue is a bit complex prompting me to explain the situation with one of my bullwhip economic videos. Check it out. I explain to Lakota what they should already know themselves. I use a bullwhip to cut a soda can in half as a proper metaphor to what is in Lakota’s employment future.
The cost of the levy for the average property owner is quite excessive. The figures I used in the above video were off the top of my head, which I refined further below. Most homes in the Liberty Township/West Chester area are well over $200,000 each. The tax increases on homes per year at $200,000 with voter approval of a new Lakota levy will be $384 per year. At $300,000 a year, which is not at all uncommon, the taxes will be $576 more per year. And at $400,000 which is quite the standard in Wetherington, Beckett Ridge, and Four Bridges, the tax increase per year will be $768 per year. But that’s not all. Commercial property is taxed at the same rate as residential property. Buildings that are valued at $5 million will go up on that one building $10,000.00 in additional taxes. Buildings valued in this range are typically small strip malls housing several small stores and that cost will be passed down to the 5-7 tenants, who are all small business owners. Their costs per year will increase about $2,000.00 each, and that’s tough on people with small margins and continuing rising costs in other areas. In many cases, a tax increase like what Lakota is proposing could shut the doors on many small businesses operating at minimum margins.
The assumption by the government school of Lakota who does not have to do anything performance wise to obtain their profit margins except beg for tax increases, is that if residents can afford a home that is $300,000 to $400,000 in value then they can afford to pay a little more for a tax increase to “help the community’s children.” They also believe that a property owner with a strip mall or restaurant that is $1 to $5 million in value will happily absorb an extra $10,000 in yearly taxes because they are already “rich.” What’s a few thousand dollars to a “rich” person? As ridiculous as that sounds, it is precisely how the administrators of Lakota think, and those who jump on the bandwagon to support the levy. This is why I call them Lakota Levy Zombies, because they mindlessly pursue tax increases without considering what the impact of that increase will have on the people who pay it.
But worse than anything is the carefully concealed study performed by the McKibben Demographics group who co-conducted an enrollment study for Lakota late in 2012 at a cost of $20,000. The results of that study indicate that by the 2022-23 school year Lakota will have lost 2,300 students due to declining enrollment trends. What this means in terms of jobs at Lakota is that the staff will have to be cut by at least 85.1 teachers who would normally teach 27 children per class. By 2022 Lakota will have to reduce their work force to meet those new enrollment needs. Over the next 10 years Lakota will save $5.1 million in just teacher salary at an average wage of $60K per year. That does not consider all the six figure administrators that Lakota will not need to manage those 85.1 teachers. Lakota will have to close down school buildings and consolidate resources that could easily save between $10 million and $15 million dollars without cutting a single program to the community just because the enrollment numbers will be less. The projection numbers at Lakota were over 18,000 students during the 2010 school year but will decline to 14,950 by the year 2022.
In addition to those numbers Lakota’s treasurer Jenni Logan stated that Lakota has lost 672 students to other public, community, or private schools, which is a trend that is likely to continue. Lakota has over the last couple of years taken away busing because their tax increases did not pass. They have also cut electives for students, and they have raised sports fees. Parents have reacted by voting with their feet and simply leaving. Meanwhile Lakota administrators continue to brag about the “tens of millions” of dollars they have cut out of their operating budget attempting to sell those cuts as a “sacrifice” to the quality of their education service, but in all reality, the cuts have been on par with the reduction in enrollment. In just the last couple of years from 2010 to 2012 Lakota has seen a drop of around 1000 students. By 2015 the enrollment numbers will be around 15,913 and continuing down from there. If Lakota continues to complain, and sell themselves as ineffective, more people will vote with their feet and simply leave the community taking their children with them, exacerbating those numbers further. If that happens Lakota could see a yearly enrollment of 10,000 by the year 2020.
The cause of the decline in enrollment according to Mckibben is that the population in the Lakota district has aged. Over the next 10 years most homes will be those of empty nesters as the current average age of the Lakota resident is 40.7. McKibbean explained this trend to the Lakota school board at a January 28 2013 meeting by saying, “You have a very high graduation rate and very high post-secondary participation rate. Your kids graduate, go off to college and don’t come back.” However, McKibbean declined to finish that statement. He didn’t want to insult the people who paid $20K for his study after all. The reason kids don’t come back to the Lakota district after they graduate college is simple, they can’t afford to. A twenty something with an average college debt between 50K and 100K cannot afford to purchase a home in the affluent Lakota community where average homes range between $200K to $300K. I know this first-hand because I have children in this age group, and they have moved back to Lakota to buy a nice home of their own in that price range and they looked all over the Cincinnati area for the best opportunity. They are unusually successful as a professional couple. They were able to buy a home in the Lakota district. They are unlikely to use the Lakota school system to teach their children, however they are tax payers in the community. But most young people their age are so saddled with debt; they can never hope to make enough money to purchase a home in that price range. This means families with children who might want to use the Lakota school system will not be able to afford to move into the community because property values are so high. Only successful adults with grown children will be able to continue living in the Lakota district. That is what is driving the Lakota enrollment decline.
Yet, even knowing this information, Lakota’s administration is ignoring it choosing instead to pick and choose their facts. They want to give their teachers who average in salary over $63K per year a raise when the collective bargaining agreement with the union is up in 2014. They are not planning for any reductions in force, or even working their salary structure to meet the community budget established through the election process. Instead, they are relying on fear tactics to win over voters which is dishonest, and negligent. Fear tactics like saying “Excellent with Distinction” (at Lakota) is in jeopardy without new tax money. We are in danger of becoming a second-class district.”
Without context the situation is complicated at Lakota, which is why I explained it with a bullwhip economics video. Most people take these professional government workers at their word which is a mistake. People are too busy in their lives to compare the notes of what was said in the media by Lakota eight months ago and what they say now after they examine Lakota’s need for more tax money not due to economic conditions of the Lakota community, but the administration’s own desire to cave under the union demands for a collective bargaining agreement in 2014. To say anything other than the truth is misleading and after all that we’ve been through at Lakota the administrators still think the taxpaying residents are too stupid to see through their sham. The facts of the matter is not that Lakota needs a tax increase, but rather they need a major employee reduction of nearly 100 teachers and administrators over the next 10 years. They should be able to achieve such a reduction with tax decreases over the next decade instead of the other way around, but they will never utter such a truth—because that’s not what they are about. As government workers they want to do one thing, and one thing only, to grow jobs through government off the backs of tax payers never putting their eyes upon reality in a hope that the formula will never collapse on itself. But the formula is in serious jeopardy, not just at Lakota, but every school district in the country that is filled with an aging population that isn’t having as many children as they once did, and the children they do have aren’t making enough money to support the tax demands of the growing government. The recipe for disaster is upon us, and is just now beginning to be seen in the embattled land of Lakota, in Liberty Township/West Chester, Ohio.
Click Below to see the source articles of this content:
The Cincinnati Enquirer, July 2013
Here is the situation nationally, but featuring Columbus, Ohio from the New York Times, July 2012
Rich Hoffman
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