District gets an earful from taxpayer

The front-page headline “School district gets earful from survey” (Monday, Dec. 3, 2018) doesn’t seem appropriate at all. The article begins with “827 local residents made their voices heard …” that is less than 2 percent of Coeur d’Alene’s population, and doesn’t include all the folks that live elsewhere in Kootenai County but are served by the school district. It goes further to state that most respondents were school district employees/family members and parents with children in the school system; 96 percent of them voiced support. What a surprise! That still doesn’t explain the headline: WHERE’S THE EARFUL?

So, the story continues to say that 82 percent supported increasing the levy and 82 percent would support making the levy PERMANENT! Again, that’s the response from 827 respondents, and it’s certainly not a representative cross section of the community. WHERE’S THE EARFUL?

Much has been written about how prosperous Cd’A and the county have become. Growth is adding wealth on a weekly basis. Yet our school district cannot seem to live within its means.

My wife and I are retired and living on my military pension and our SSA benefits. We have investments, too, but those are supposed to be for OUR retirement needs. We have never had a child in the local school system. This year (2019), we’re getting the largest COLA increase in our SSA benefits, 2.9 perecnt, in the last seven years; several of those years, we didn’t get any increase at all. Nonetheless, we will pay over $3,000 in property taxes to support YOUR children this year alone. Still, the district wants to vacuum up even more dollars; and make it a permanent levy that we can’t vote down and without any apparent way to get rid of it in the future! Isn’t that special? How nice! WHERE’S THE EARFUL?

The school district needs to learn how to live within its means, stop asking for supplemental levies and start showing some real management skills. Just because you want something doesn’t mean you have to have it and we must pay for it. Most of you know what the solution is: only spend what you have and if you don’t have the money, then you don’t get the extras, period. Oh, and let’s pass a law that exempts seniors (62 and up) who don’t have children in the system from supporting this seemingly endless and mindless quest for our tax dollars.

I ask again: WHERE’S THE EARFUL? I’m guessing it’s coming soon!

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William L. Hamilton, CW4, USA, Ret., is a Coeur d’Alene resident.