Levy needed to keep our kids competitive

There seems to be a lot of people, not just locally, but in the whole state, that think school taxes have gotten out of control. We understand the frustration of more and more tax dollars being taken out of our paychecks, and nothing new to show for it. School taxes are not one of the things that fall into that category, not when the price of everything continues to go up.

We compared our tax statements over the last 20 years, and came up with some real numbers for school taxes.

Between 1994 when we moved into our house and 2005 when the state quit charging taxes for local school districts, we paid between $116.40 low to $216.10 high in school taxes, with $187.32 the last year of state collection. Then the local district started having to collect taxes to support our schools.

Our school taxes dropped to $31.86 in 2006 — a $155 decrease. Last year, we paid $90.50 in local school tax, still considerably less than we were paying in the past under the old collection system.

It is no wonder our schools are hurting for money, when for the last seven years we have been falling farther and farther behind in the amount needed to run our school district like it should be. This is a statewide problem, that began when our state government decided it did not have to support the school system, even though it is required by law to do so. The state continues to cut school funding. The lottery and one-cent sales tax dollars, that were supposed to cover the difference in tax collections, have failed to bring in the necessary funding.

The facts are we pay a lot less in school taxes than we did in the 1990s and early 2000s even though the local levy amounts keep going up, just like everything else has gone up because of inflation. Our school district has continually cut both employees and costs wherever possible in last few years, even as the state and federal governments have imposed more and more unfunded requirements.

It costs to keep our kids competitive in the real world after graduation and after looking at the facts we support the upcoming West Bonner County School levy.

CHRIS and DIANE OLDHAM

Oldtown