There’s a story at GazetteXtra.com about a November referendum for the Whitewater Unified School District. See, Whitewater schools seeking referendum.
I haven’t written much about our schools lately. There’s been talk about a referendum for months, but no commitment in the press until now. The Gazette reports that “the school board is expected to approve a resolution for a referendum that asks voters to allow the district to exceed state revenue caps by $620,000 each year for five years, from 2011-12 to 2015-16. The referendum will be on the ballot Tuesday, Nov. 2.”
(The district received voters’ approval in 2006 to exceed revenue caps by that same amount; this referendum would extend spending beyond the caps for another five years. There’s also a second possible referendum, about a bond issue.)
I’m not about to make a prediction on the chances for the referendum; this is a year of political volatility and uncertainty. I don’t know what voters will conclude.
One can say two things, however. The WUSD may need this money “desperately,” as District Administrator Dr. Suzanne Zentner contends. Nonetheless, the case for (or against) the referendum should (and will) rest on more than an adverb. It will require a detailed assessment of where the money goes now, and what would happen without it. What, precisely depends on the six-hundred thousand; what, precisely, would be lost without it? Would only one set of items be lost, or are alternative cuts possible?
These are fair questions, and they’re ones that proponents of the referendum — administrators, teachers, and politicians — should be prepared and happy to answer. I emphasize politicians, because, after all, members of the school board should be able to offer a detailed view on the referendum.
There’s a second thing one can, and should say: it’s unconvincing to suggest that the referendum carries no additional tax impact, since it’s a continuation of an existing tax burden. The WUSD’s Director of Business Services, Jim Strasburg, makes that contention:
Strasburg said the referendum – because it is a continuation of an original referendum and its related tax burden – carries no additional tax impact for district residents. “That money is already in the levy,” he said.
There may be a justification for the referendum’s passage; this is not it.
Director Strasburg is wrong in his analysis. The extension of an existing tax burden, set to expire, is an additional burden, and so has an additional (tax) impact. For that matter, the imposition of a tax or cost is a burden at each time and occasion it’s imposed. It’s impossible for it to be otherwise. All resources are allocated, all costs borne, in conditions of scarcity where one use precludes other possible uses.
This is no reason to support the extension of tax or spending proposals — that something has been a burden and obligation in the past does not justify continuing it. The presumption in a community should always be against taking privately earned money from those who earned it. It may be a rebuttable presumption, but it should be a presumption nonetheless. To suggest otherwise it to declare that current tax and spending policy is unalterable, except by way of increase.
My point isn’t that the referendum can’t be justified; it’s that nothing said so far does justify it, clearly and convincingly. It’s fair to wait, and see what officials and politicians say in greater detail.