Re: Fairfax Teachers Are Overpaid (Not Just Another Meals Tax Thread)
Posted by:
The refuter
()
Date: October 30, 2016 09:05PM
First, the proposed new tax is 4% on top of the existing 6% sales tax for a total of a 10% tax on every meal in the County. You know that. (I do. Of course, this goes to a different purpose. Will it cause people to eat out less or order lower cost items or tip less? Not sure.)
This would be an additional $100 million in new taxes after the Democratic controlled Board of Supervisors raised our real estate taxes by $100 million, a 6% increase, already this year. (Yes, it is. Have you seen the state of things, though? You get what you pay for.)
Second, 70% of the new meals tax money is to go for schools because Fairfax County Public Schools need to be "more competitive" in teacher compensation. Yet, last year FCPS filled about 1,000 teaching positions where over 15,000 teachers applied for those positions. Those teachers thought the compensation was very competitive. (That is not a cause. Many people apply to the area because of the quality of the schools. This does not mean they wish to be paid poorly. FCPS is losing good teachers every year. Maybe you are ok with attracting poor candidates. I am not.)
Did you also know that retired Fairfax County employees are eligible for two pensions, rather than just one, until a retiree is old enough to receive Social Security benefits? This second pension is virtually unheard of anywhere else in government or the private sector. (It is also virtually unheard of that a person with that level of education and required on-going training makes as little as they do to begin with. If these end of career perks were not there, we'd have poorer schools and less money, as great schools attract a lot of people and business. By the way, lots of private companies offer seasonal bonuses, stock options, etc.)
The Pro-Tax crowd wants you to believe the state is not providing enough funding for schools. However, Fairfax County Public Schools are receiving a record amount of state tax dollars this year: $632 million. Another $30 million is already added for the budgeted 2017-18 school year and this represents a 29 percent increase in funding over the past five years. (Yawn. Percentages are always the way to mislead someone. Note how this is based on some mistaken belief that the schools, the population, and the needs stay the same each year?)
The problem for Fairfax County lies in the Democrat controlled Board of Supervisors and School Board that find it easier to put their hand in your pocket rather than tightening their bloated budgets. In Richmond, Virginia's state budget general fund is actually smaller than it was ten years ago, even with inflation and population growth. (I love the word bloated. Seriously? There may be overspending in places, but bloated? It is again, quite comical that you are trumpeting the fact the state spends less, as the population and needs increase. What you really want is to pay the same no matter the circumstances, no matter the need. All day long on Bloomberg we hear about companies passing on cost increases to consumers. Some of these increases are based on the circumstance on the ground. I am betting some of these businesses are not run by Democrats.)
And what about the expected tax revenue windfall of tens of millions of dollars from all the new development in Tysons Corner and the Dulles Corridor? Enough is enough. (Dear lord... do you think any of those development dollars will be going to roads, or overpasses, or to build a school? Guess what? When the windfall happens, maybe things will adjust again.)
We need to go to the polls on November 8th and Vote No to defeat the meals tax referendum. We need to send a strong message to the Board of Supervisors to stop the spending and fix your budgets! (I will do the opposite, thanks.)