I am responding to the letter from the Centralia School District superintendent in the June 17 issue as well as a letter I believe was also from her a week earlier thanking the voters of Centralia for approving the school levy. In the first letter, the writer explained why additional funding was so needed.
I find it curious that she is so grateful for a 1% tax levy for the schools when she went for a 2.5% levy and then a 1.5% levy, both of which failed with the voters. I have a few questions: What did the district give up from the difference between 2.5% and 1%? That difference must be millions of dollars. What aren’t the students getting that they would have gotten with the 2.5% levy?
Unfunded liabilities: The school district had to pay for requirements levied by the state Legislature that the state refused to pay. Is it not unconstitutional for the state to pass a tax liability to a lower level of taxation (i.e., local) that itself refused to cover? How can a representative from another part of the state require me to pay additional tax for my local schools? Someone please explain this. And what are these requirements, anyway? Was this not important for the voters to know before they voted?
Sports: Why should a parent with a kid in the chess club be required to pay for thousands of dollars of equipment for somebody else’s kid to play football? Parents of kids who play recreational hockey pay thousands for equipment so their kids can participate. Why do the football parents get to skate just because football is a school sport? What about the medical care for the kids who get hurt playing sports? Why should I pay for any of that when I don’t have kids in school anymore?
Busing: My kids rode the school bus for a few years when they were young. Every day, I saw hundreds of parents lined up to drop off or pick up their kids at school while I saw 30 buses moving about town no more than a third full. Some of them were virtually empty. And when the kids hit high school, they drove themselves. Put me in charge for a day and there would be no more school busses.
Lisa Grant’s gratitude was wasted on me. I voted no on the levy issue, as well as 50% of the other voters. Why? Because when my kids were in school in Colorado, there were several school bond issues. Have the schools gotten better? No. In fact they’re far worse. My kids’ education was much worse than the education I got in Iowa in the 1960s and 70s. Most young people I know can’t even string a cogent sentence together. And back then, my parents weren’t asked every few years to pony up additional money.
I’m planning on attending a future school board meeting. Grant and her cohorts best have some answers prepared.
Joel W. Muenchau
Centralia
