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Utah County school revenues up

I love the Alpine District. Always making it sound like they're saving us money and doing us a great favor. If the past holds true, however, they'll be back in another year asking for "another $230 million" tax increase to keep funding this and that all in the name of "the children! The children!"

If RS will take the time to really look at the numbers, it will become obvious that Alpine school district does more with less money than just about every district in the US.

Of course, it should be noted that rumors suggest that the legislature overestimated revenues and will be unable to make good on teacher raises this year. If our legislature could operate as effectively as Alpine District we'd all be better off.

Oh great. Revenue is up. Now the district can hire more administrators and/or pat themselves on the back with a raise. Not for teachers, however. Let the low-lifes (teachers) swelter in a hot classroom with 30-35 kids.
We'll just hire another analyst to tell the teachers why they sould be happy. We'll get some more overhead staff to send more directives.
More teachers? That's a waste of money. They're overpaid anyway, right? What we need is a nicer district office and more trips to study other districts.

Quite a few details were left out of this story.

Alpine got voters to pass the bond and leway, promising voters only a small increase in their taxes($57 on a $200,000 home). After voters passed this bond, Alpine realized it wasn't enough to deliver the promises they made, so they then bumped the taxes up another 9% ABOVE what voters approved. (These details were disclosed at the taxation meeting.) This happened despite the huge increase in property valuations. They can raise our taxes WITHOUT our vote.

Provo and Nebo's tax rate went down because they took in so much more money from re-valuation of homes, but Alpine's STILL went significantly up.

Districts like Jordan ran into the same kinds of problems as Alpine. They realized that to be fair to voters, they should cut some projects and then allow voters the option to vote another increase. Alpine just decided to take it WITHOUT a public vote by getting the board to approve their budget.

Taxes for MANY people were up by 70-90 percent when you combine the 35% increase from Alpine district and the re-valuation of homes. Our own home valuation went up 70%. For my family it meant a $600 increase alone for Alpine. It is hurting many people and the NEGATIVE public comment at the taxation hearing meeting lasted 2.5 hours. They also said we will likely see even bigger increases in the next few years to cover their debts.

I attended this truth-in-taxation meeting. Only board members Christine Hannemann and Timothy Osborn had the guts to oppose this kind of taxation and voted to look at other options. People in this district might want to look carefully at who they vote onto the Alpine School Board.