Posted by David Bernstein: That Great Sucking Sound is Your Tax Money Vacuumed into the Public Schools:
What are local governments in doing with all the extra property tax revenue they are taking in due to the unprecedented rise in housing prices? Where I live, they're wasting it, and there is going to be hell to pay when the bubble bursts, tax revenues stagnate or even decrease, and prudent fiscal policy has long been thrown out the window. My local Arlington County newspaper reports that all teachers in the county, who are already the best paid in the area, are due to get an 8% raise for the year. Particularly remarkable, was how this came about. Some fraction of soaring property tax revenues are earmarked for the schools (which already spend the absurd some of $17,000 per student). The school superintendent decided that beginning teachers with master's degrees should be paid forty-five thousand dollars, an 8% increase. Why forty-five thousand? Because this is "a nice round number." Really, that's what he said! And once these teachers received an 8% increase, he felt obligated to give all county teachers an 8% increase. New teachers with a bachelor's degree for example, will make over forty thousand dollars, making it probably the best job available to English and history majors in the D.C. area. _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
