(Updated 1/16/2001)
(Please note, this is not a complete report.)
We believe that there is not
enough space in the voter’s pamphlet to list all of the reasons that the
citizens of the Tacoma School District should vote NO on this bond.
Fact # 1. Washington State has the 9th highest pr
capita tax burden in America.
Fact # 2. Tacoma’s
property tax rate is the highest in Washington.
Fact # 3. Former Tacoma Mayor/New Bates Technical College
President Brian Ebersole says, “… because the schools have historically
relied on such a huge share of the local property tax, Tacoma’s overall
property tax rate is the highest of any city in the state. That’s not a
positive distinction for individual homeowners or our business community.”
(The News Tribune, 5/14/2000)
Fact # 4. Currently, taxpayers who live in the Tacoma School
District pay $7.91 per $1000.00 assessed value on their property. The
average rate across the state is only $4.33. This means that taxpayers
are already paying twice what taxpayers in Seattle and Bellevue pay!
Fact # 5. $450 million is the largest bond
in Tacoma’s history!
Fact
#6. On November 5, 1996, over 70% of
the citizens of Pierce County voted to have independent performance audits
conducted in county government to insure that their tax dollars were being
spent as efficiently as possible.
Shouldn’t
we citizen’s insist that the Tacoma School Board have independent performance
audits done periodically to make sure that we are getting the maximum mileage
for our dollars that they have already have before they ask for more dollars?
The
City of Tacoma has announced that they want to put a $72 million proposal on
the ballot in spring 2001.