MacDermid: School Funding Confusion
No one seems to want to tell the people what will happen when the new 25/75 school matching ratio of state BEP to local tax funding replaces the 35/65 old ratio.
A ninth grader tells us that 65 divided by 35 is 185.7%
& Then says 75 divided by 25 is 300%
& goes on to say that 300% divided by 185.7% is 161.6%
So, What?
He goes on to say multiply the 161.6% times the $16,426,136 in the 2006-7 BEP budgeted and you get $26,544,635 for BEP (what's a BEP?)
When asked so what? he says take the $26,544,635 and deduct the old way money of $16,426,136 & you'll know what's happening. So, What's happening?
He says, It's $10 million, 118,499! Everybody's eyes start popping out - What are we going to do with it? We don't know? Who knows? Should we just up and move everybody to Brentwood? Wonder who has figured this out? Help! -- Don MacDermid
A ninth grader tells us that 65 divided by 35 is 185.7%
& Then says 75 divided by 25 is 300%
& goes on to say that 300% divided by 185.7% is 161.6%
So, What?
He goes on to say multiply the 161.6% times the $16,426,136 in the 2006-7 BEP budgeted and you get $26,544,635 for BEP (what's a BEP?)
When asked so what? he says take the $26,544,635 and deduct the old way money of $16,426,136 & you'll know what's happening. So, What's happening?
He says, It's $10 million, 118,499! Everybody's eyes start popping out - What are we going to do with it? We don't know? Who knows? Should we just up and move everybody to Brentwood? Wonder who has figured this out? Help! -- Don MacDermid
posted by J. Kendrick McPeters | 8:05 PM
17 Comments:
If the excess is $10 million & the matching is $3 for $1 ($4 total), then the other side would be a property tax reducion of $2.5 million.
And, of course, the other $7.5 million in matching funds, would not be sucked out of the state treasury, and we could have a huge reduction in sales tax! Giles Co. residents are also state residents & tax payers.
The budget published in the Pulaski paper gives no clue where the loot goes! All we know is, there is a 60% point gap between Tennessee test scores and the federal basis, per 6-7-7 Tennessean headline! We also know spending was up almost 10% a year, but teachers only got less than 3% in total compensation / yr., while bureaucracy jumped almost 50% in 3 years!
Does the 60% point test score gap growth have any relativity to the 30% spending increase? If so, one might think that the spender has to tell 2 fibs before spending $1???
Did you know ... Lovell, Reedy, & Holt knew all of this & more when they tried to ram the wheel tax down our throats again!
(what was that movie where the wives were programmed to be sweet obedient little critters? Stepford? Sheepford?) Maybe the reeducation & PC officers have been running brain scans during lunch hour. Trigger word, "More Money" - response "yes, yes, yes"
Drowing in money, but never enough when there is a so much more to waste! Thank God we have folks like Billy Beets, to tell them where to stuff it!
If the seed money (local tax) was there & was valid, can anyone come up with an answer other than $10 million?
Questions -
Who will be paying that $10 million?
Will it not be 10 million more distractions keeping your children from learning basic skills?
do
don m
I wonder if there will be a hanging garden in the new Tower of Babylon? Dig a moat around it??? It's on a hillside! Fill it with blue concrete & put a few fake alligators, frogs, and lilly pads here & there - no one will know the difference - except those dumb enough to dive in head first - & they won't be able to talk about it. It'll be living proof that the laws of gravity don't apply in Babylon.
don...
Professional educators here in Giles County bitterly resent your "suggestion" that our children are not being taught basic skills. Shame on you!
Could yopu say one thing positive about Giles County? Please. I would like to hear it from you.
Little cups only hold so much. By the time political correctness, regimentation, rewriting of history, etc. is poured in, there is little room left for right.
Add to it: teacher thought, ability, and resourcefulness is geometrically opposed by bureaucratic growth.
Thus, being taught has nothing to do with "learning", once the cup overflows! Teachers and their tools are little more than pawns in a million dollar education scam.
Clue - teacher raise of less than 3% - Administrative salaries increase by over 50%.
Clue: 2007-8 salary decreases in budgeted funds for teachers and their support functions. sneaky superv / admin increases 8.3% & principal salaries up 7.3%, etc.
Clue: Garden of Babylon for administration - leaky thatch hut for teacher & pupils.
Clue: "no behind left" paperwork
Clue: Psychiatrists and medical personnel wandering through the hallways carrying bottles of RIDLIN
Clue: rooms full of computers but no one knows how much money they have, where it's supposed to go, or when they will pay.
NEA & TEA - looks more like the mess described by Kendrick - they sure don't represent the teachers - It's all about social change & oppression of the very people they are supposed to represent.
response?- Remove the negative terminal from your flashlight and you will be find darkness.
xxxxxxx
Fighting deception is eternally positive. Read what was written. My comments have been very focused and factually documented. Beyond the director of schools, board of education (as a body), and a few commissioners who vote yes on anything requested, what have you found that isn't positive?
You talk about "Professional Educators" & resentment - code words for bureaucrat, not teacher. "Professional" applies to high ethical standards, truth, openness, communication, and knowledge of substance. "Education" centers on basic facts of math, sciences, language structure & meanings, historical events, etc. I'm sure teachers try to "TEACH" basics! Financial data says bureaucratic obstacles to "LEARNING" basics are insurmountable! My issue is "professional educators" resenting truth so much that they bear false witness to suppress truth. That defines corruption, not "professional" or "educator". If you have no credibility, you have no morality or business in education!
Tennessee test scores of 60 percentage points below the national average is a disgrace! Jackson's bar chart illusions depict a 100 times greater success than the phony "value added" scores claimed! That is unconscionable! The school I attended would expel anyone who did that. If you presented that chart to a corporate board, you would be fired on the spot. Lying is not positive!
Falsifying a corporate financial report or funding requisition to obtain money by deception from stockholders, financial institutions, or government contract agencies will get you fired, plus jail time. I have documented a wealth of million dollar misrepresentations in the past four years, in state matching money, plus revenue and funds manipulation. They aren't stealing your watch. It's your legacy, your child! "Professional" scam artists see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil! It's hush, hush!
Evil is falsifying sales tax revenue and associated matching money year after year! Evil is powerful positions of trust who claim no knowledge of their bank deposits, Tennessee Department of Revenue monthly reports, or when the data is available! Evil will tell you a local tax of 25% that begets a 75% state matching is not a 300% ratio of state to local! Evil will lead you to believe that a $2.5 million spending spree in 2006-7 vs. 2005-6 would only beget $110,000 more matching funds under the "we don't get it until a year later", Jackson rule! Evil will take $1.49 million from savings to spend on a perpetual motion machine, in a period of record tax collections! Evil will cut core teaching and teaching support areas from prior year levels to create a phony tax revenue crisis. Evil will sneak in healthy increases in administrative salaries, fringes, and contracts because the teacher and taxpayer "believes whatever they are told", and one will work for less, while both will pay more taxes!
I've written a lot over the last 4 years. This year, the council budget committee meeting was given some pertinent information on fraudulent activity & hidden funds just after Jackson presented his budget. The next meeting was closed to public comment. I sat down with Mr. Reedy & Lovell with data & discussion of that fraudulent activity & hidden funds. Lovell claimed he couldn't participate because it would violate his sunshine law, but listened anyway. Shortly thereafter, they teamed up with Mr. Holt to cram a new wheel tax down our throat. Mr. Beets and others, told them what to do with the wheel & the tax - (we do have several excellent commissioners!) The school bullies lost.
If you are a teacher with professional inclinations, you need to read & absorb what is written. There is more than enough to pay you a decent wage. There is never enough for a corrupt bureaucracy that takes over to disrupt and interfere with your very objective - teaching in an environment conducive to learning!
donm
the data is available & I won't tell.
Anonymous, August 08, 2007 5:21:00 PM, said:
Professional educators here in Giles County bitterly resent your "suggestion" that our children are not being taught basic skills.
Well... how many government schooled eighth graders in Giles County do you think would be able to pass this test:
http://mwhodges.home.att.net/1895-test.htm
Basis skills, huh? Way back in 1895, in Salinas, Kansas, "professional educators" actually had high expectations of the children they taught. But, no longer!
Shame on you!
And shame on you, for voluntarily working as a prison guard in the government's sinister Death Camp of the Human Spirit! Couldn't you find another line of work? Maybe something that didn't involve hammering the individuality out of innocent kids, and hindering their ability to think?
And shame on you once again, for being paid in blood money, stolen from the hapless taxpayers at the point of the IRS's guns! Couldn't a "professional educator" such as yourself easily land a paying job at a private school? Don't you think you could ditch the "truant officer," and still have parents send their kids to you, voluntarily? Can't you find parents willing to pay for your services, without invoking the guns of the government against them? Or are you such a poor excuse for a teacher, that you cannot even imagine surviving other than by sucking the tax-payer's lifeblood dry? Shame on you!
Could yopu say one thing positive about Giles County? Please. I would like to hear it from you.
How about this? This should be real easy for you..... can you name one good thing done by local governmrent school teachers, that wouldn't be done even better, by private school teachers, if the government would simply privatize the schools, and allow the educational market to work without any hinderance or subsidy?
C'mon... you can think of at least one thing, right????
Wow....such paranoia.
It really was a simple question, but no answer. I suspected that response.
What I did expect was the typical condescending atitude.
attitude...sorry 'bout that typo.
/////////don...
Professional educators here in Giles County bitterly resent your "suggestion" that our children are not being taught basic skills. Shame on you!
Could yopu say one thing positive about Giles County? Please. I would like to hear it from you.////
Wednesday, August 08, 2007 5:21:00 PM
////Wow....such paranoia.
It really was a simple question, but no answer. I suspected that response.
What I did expect was the typical condescending atitude.
Sunday, August 12, 2007 2:58:00 PM ///
The mere fact that people are fighting your evil, is extremely positive. You are making a false insinuation and statement to avoid the obvious, not asking a legitimate question.
I'm sure that what is happening in your little den of corruption is very negative. People must be asking you questions, forcing you to dig deeper your hole of deceit.
Out of your "professional educator" group, how many can't comprehend the very positive nature of eliminating and exposing corruption? Did anyone take algebra? I'm reasonably sure you all understand & place yourselves above truth and morality - all in the name of your "Education" scam.
Do any of you have a legitimate response to the annual sales tax fraud - The BEP games - loading all funding requirements on local fund tax increases - cutting critical expenditures to obtain funds for frills? Cat got your tongue on the $10 million thing? Corruption never has a legitimate response!
This isn't about teachers! The issue is a malignancy in the central nervous system. Remove it or the good body it directs will die with it. Without a sound platform of right, wrong, and basic morality, nothing good will happen in your organization. Example is learned long before that which is taught!
don m
don..
Still smarting over the rejection I see. Get over it.
Do you think you and those of your persuasion have all the answers as well as a corner on the morality market? If so, you are woefully mistaken, and your arrogance knows no bounds.
Don't have a "corner" on anything. I just try & that separates the two of us. If you ever do something for someone else, you'll find it not uncommon for them to want to "it" do all by themselves - It's not a put down, unless you have no self confidence & no respect for the other person.
There are usually many acceptable answers (solutions) to problems. I have been defining problems of corruption - things that are terrible burdens on our community! Apparently you take great offense to being made aware of fraud and corruption at the top of the school system. That defines who you are!
You are confusing problems with answers & relatively clue less on either one.
1. Jackson could have simply stopped cooking the books at any point in time, beginning with a 2004-5 tax request that conveniently left out the matching funds from his equation. Instead of stopping, the ante simply escalates every year after that! Four years of repetitive actions defines character - He isn't going to stop, until stopped by external forces.
2. That brings us to the school board - all highly educated people who should comprehend simple math, thou shalt not bear false witness or steal, and should have enough gumption to talk to those who have compiled a lot of facts to back up the obvious. SOLUTION: Instead of firing Jackson, they give him a contract extension & raise! Dilemma - are they as corrupt as Jackson, or is Kendrick correct in stating it's a result of, A) institutionalized corruption or B) an education diploma factory bestowing honors to make room for another lost soul?
3. The Council doesn't run the school system, but they sure can cut off the money. They have an absolute duty to the taxpayer, to not act on any fraudulent document or monetary requisition! Worst case scenario is an absolute no change budget from prior year. There is no mandate to perpetuate waste & fraud! They have the resources to prosecute. Aside from a few murky relationships, the council has stopped the fraudulent tax increases, but fail to stop the problems!
4. Then, there are the citizens. That is where the real power rests. They can throw anyone out of office, but tend to think of themselves as powerless victims. They can make life unbearable for the corrupt. We've read & seen a lot about a lot of them, right?
Dilemma: A) It's very difficult to get stories printed or in the media. (Our paper is much better than most.) B) A complex scam is difficult to explain to an average person. Dilemma or not - Real stuff sticks to the wall. Your crap bounces off! You will be known by what you are, what you say, what you try to cover up!
8-14-7 / 8:59 p was written by me -Don MacDermid (don m) - forgot to sign it - not hard to find - not shy about sharing information, genuine ideas, & honest critism.
I do get feed back on published printed articles. The people are not as dumb as you think. It's hard to find someone that supports fraud & corruption.
Once again, your hero TJ & the board find the cup big time overflows - they really don't need any more money - just need approval to go on a really, really big spending binge. p/PS. is the $150,000 scammed last week forgotten & past your recall parameters?
I'm sure you are happy any time any piece of your scam works. The rest of us are fed up!
anonymous (aka don m)....
You accuse me of confusing problems with answers and say that I embrace fraud and corruption at the "top" of the school system. Outrageous!
Are you always so pleasant? Would you mind mentioning something good about Giles County? Is there a single person in office who meets with your stamp of approval? Probably not.
When you defend corruption & the corrupt, you embrace it - You're kissing toads & trying to hide the warts.
How about naming a single person outside of the school board / administration & a couple of people who have acted to pass or try to pass fraudulent monetary requests? You are not in the same league as the rest of the elected officials - they are professional, respected, and trusted!
I don't lock doors when a road crew or sheriff car passes - I feel secure & good when I see them! When I see Jackson in a council meeting, I know my farm is in jeopardy & I know funds needed by the sheriff & roads (to serve me and my neighbors) are about to get railroaded to more bureaucracy & waste! Is there any doubt who I do not trust? (or why?)
don m
Yep, you are STILL smarting over your rejection. Get over it, don.
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