school tax time

(quoted from post at 08:42:18 09/02/12) I was on the local school board when they first Unionized the teachers. We had been saving money for several years to repair the old school buildings we had. They needed new furnaces and insulated windows. We still had three that where coal fired. We where doing a school every other year just by saving the money else where. The first thing the Des Moines Union guy did was raise he!! that we had "cheated" the teachers out of that money by not paying them everything in the budget. They then started talking about how our pay was so much lower than the highest district in the state. No mention of the fact that our cost of living was much lower too. Our teachers where in the top 20% of wage earners in the district.

When they started raising cane I had my maternal Grand Mother keep track of the time the teachers actually worked. The local grade school was right across from her house. She would log when they got to school and when they left. She even wrote down what they where carrying. So if they had a arm load of books or papers we gave them credit for working at home. It worked out they they where working about 35 hours each week. Average one getting there at 8:15 am and leaving at 2:45pm. That was giving them credit for working at home too. Then they had the summer off. They where making about $30 an hour for the actual time worked. This was in the 1980s.

Before the Union got a hold of the schools we had the top schools in the nation. The Iowa tests results showed that. Now we are in the bottom half. Makes you get all warm an fuzzy about these teachers today doesn't it???

I finally did not run for another term after ten years. I was get sick of the waste and mis-management. The local high school has a total of 350 kids. We have a Principle and a vice principle. The principle makes $100K each year. The lazy slob weights in at over 400 lbs. We had to put in a special chair for him because of his "handicap". When I started the board the principle made $1500 more than the teachers. Plus he taught at least a class or two each day as well.

Today we are buying Harbor Freight teachers at Snap On prices. My grand kids can tell you how to put on a condom but can't tell you who wrote the Declaration of Independence.

For this "improvement" I am paying $15,000 each year in real estate taxes. That is more than the farm mortgage payment was when we bought it in the mid 1980s.

Want to know a real sickening thing. Our local school board now had two retired teachers on it. They always vote for anything the teachers want. There are two more running this year. They play on the fact that they know all these kids and parents so they are hard to bet in the election. All of us local farmer type are just mean old tight wads. If they get these two in they will have a majority on the board. Can you imagine what they will give their old teacher buddies??? Also all four are drawing teacher retirement. None of them are over sixty years old. So they will get their retirement and the school board pay. Seems kind of like letting the fox run the hen house.

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