From the FB Chronicle Blog:
Not everyone happy with appraisal district's building proposal
Fort Bend County's Chief Appraiser Glen Whitehead is preparing a PowerPoint presentation to bring to the Fort Bend school board in hopes of persuading skeptical trustees that it's a wise move to use a $434,425 tax revenue surplus -- part of which came from the school districts' taxpayers -- for a new appraisal district building. . .
...The opposition by Rosenberg and the Stafford and Lamar school districts -- and whatever decision the Fort Bend school district gives -- won't have an impact on Whitehead's plan because the property law says the proposal needs only approval by three/quarters of the jurisdictions.
Lamar school trustees asked for a detailed facility plan and exactly how the money would be spent. Whitehead said he could not produce that because this is an early stage of planning.
Some Fort Bend trustees also frowned upon the plan and asked for an explanation of the surplus money and the plan.
School board president Cynthia Knox had this comment:
This would be like a gift to the appraisal district, and the school district doesn't give a gift.
Trustee Laurie Caldwell added:
Public education money should stay in public education.
Trustee Stan Magee cracked this joke:
Let's ask the appraisal district to not raise our appraisal for the next five years and then we may consider it.
See: http://blogs.chron.com/fortbend/archives/2008/01/not_everyone_is.html#comments
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FBISDWatch comment:
Sure would be nice if they gave it back to the schools that need it or rebate it back to the tax paying public (probably not a consideration of Mr. Whitehead.
14 comments:
Related comments:
"Fort Bend school board in hopes of persuading skeptical trustees that it's a wise move to use a $434,425 tax revenue surplus -- part of which came from the school districts' taxpayers -- for a new appraisal district building."
Isn't that nice of the tax collectors to take our excess and use it on themselves. How lovely. Why not rebate it?
"Whitehead told me Friday that in most years the district has had more revenue than budgeted, but never as much as the surplus for 2007,"
Leave it to our tax paid officials to seek record bond debt, raise our taxes and then keep any surplus. I think this is a horrible idea. The school district should never have let the county take over their tax collection duties. This is what happens. The schools need it first after the recent record bond/debt election.
Posted by: taxpayer at January 19, 2008 11:15 AM
what is this,"The rest of the entities took no action by a Dec. 4 deadline, which the state property code renders as meaning approval."---sounds like we need to change the property code developed by special interest lobbyist so they can get their clients grubby little hands on more of the publics money. Why doesn't this law default to NO instead of yes?
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I think the fact that over 20,000 taxpayers protested (a record) last year speaks volume on the trust level this group has with our money. Basically it looks like if they want something, since they already have our money, they will just take it.
Posted by: taxpayer at January 20, 2008 08:38 AM
I would rather not have our taxes intended for our schools diverted to the county.
Unbelievable! Have we all lost our way?
Can someone explain the nexus between a school district's surplus tax revenue to the county's responsibility to build a new appraisal district building if, indeed one is needed???
If a school district has surplus tax revenue, a logical reasoning is that it should be returned to the school district for the benefit of the children that it serves.
Furthermore, this is a very bold and cheeky request from an Appraisal District that is not property taxpayer friendly in the first place.
"this is a very bold and cheeky request from an Appraisal District that is not property taxpayer friendly in the first place."
I couldn't agree more silk! We need a strong taxpayers union/association in this county and we need some of the local parties to offer bona fide support.
And not just so they can turn around and rebate it to relocating elite "edc insider" corps, IMO. The children should come first!
I wonder if the fb cad will build a building for me?
This absurd act by our county government is unforgivable. It's like taking candy from a baby, or better yet taxes from our needy schools.
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Kate
http://educationonline-101.com
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