How I hate the School Districts.
I had a really long bitchy anti-school tax narration lined up, but I’m just going to water it down, since I seemed to just have suffered from diarrhea of the keyboard when I set out to write it. My issues with the school districts:
Taxation. How is it fair that someone with no kids pays the same amount of taxes that someone with six kids? How is it fair that someone who homeschools their children still pays taxes for a school system they’re not using? I’m not opposed to paying school taxes; I just think it should be proportional to one’s usage of the system.
Waste. How is it that we can afford to build beautiful schools (Wando HS, Daniel Island School – for example) that are already outgrown when they’re completed? And why are those pretty schools in affluent areas? Maybe they should concentrate on space rather than if it will look pretty from the street. How is it that America suffers from fat kid syndrome and we’re putting franchised food in the cafeterias?
Traffic Congestion. How is it that we all pay taxes for a school transportation system, yet there’s a massive amount of people that drive to schools (parents or students themselves)? Students should not be driving to school unless there are extenuating circumstances (which should be verifiable) such as work immediately after school, etc. Parents should not be driving their kids to school unless there are extenuating circumstances (Parents have to leave before bus comes, etc). Cutting down on the number of unnecessary commuters would decrease the amount of traffic heading to the schools, thereby saving everyone the headache of dealing with it. I’d love to see some sort of numbers on the amount of people that commute to the schools unnecessarily, including the ones that drop off (parents) and the ones that park there (students).
I saw in this morning’s P&C that the BCSD was looking at finding ways to exempt schools and other non-profits from the impact fees that are levied against new construction. I am split on this issue. I think that the schools should have to pay something, as they increase the strain on local roadways (see my point above). On the other hand, me, you, and everyone else will have to foot the bill for it……so, do we give them a pass? We’ll have to pay for it eventually, either in taxes that go to the roads, or taxes that go to the schools so they can pay the impact fees which will go towards the roads. If other new construction in the area (subdivisions or shopping centers, for example) will offset the impact fees paid by the school, then I can see where a school should be exempted from the impact fees. It makes little sense to collect from a school when the impact fees from surrounding new construction will pay for the upgrading of the infrastructure in the area.
As far as churches and non-profits like that….no way in hell should they be exempted. They also increase traffic through an area (On Sundays GCPD actually posts an officer in front of the Holy Mile on Hwy 176 to help with traffic (at the request of one of the churches), and more than one officer has been struck, either their patrol car or themselves by wonderfully attentive SC drivers). They are also tax-exempt, so an impact fee (not necessarily being a tax) to me seems like it’s fine with me. Governmental buildings can be exempted I suppose – Post Offices, County Service Centers, DMV buildings, etc – serve the public and unless they pose an unnecessary burden on the surrounding infrastructure they should be exempted from impact fees.
Believe it or not, this was much shorter than my original draft!