Hall County GOP Chairman Blog

Now everyone is making fun of us.  Gainesville and Hall County Education in the Crapper | Peach Pundit

I have to agree with the Citizens who were at the meeting about the Gainesville School District $8M shortfall.  This kind of fiscal mismanagement is either criminal or criminally negligent.  Everyone needs to go who were in the chain-of-command on this mess

Read The Times story here–>Residents clamor for change in city school leadership

Note that the Hall County School Board is jumping on the tax wagon while everyone is distracted by the City’s mess.  Since they found out the “we lost the money and don’t know where it went” story does not get the sympathy the Democrats would like, they had to have a different story.  They want to raise their budget by 7.9% for next year.  (Inflation was under 3% so that means they are seeking an increase in services of 4.9%.)  To pay for this increase they want to increase the millage rate by 0.79.  My good friend Doug Aiken is right when he says that this money could be raised internally.  Note the timing of this notice of tax increase.  Nath Morris and Craig Herrington both just qualified for re-election as Republicans but had no opposition.  Why didn’t they announce this tax increase BEFORE they qualified?

Read The Times story here–>http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/article/6020/

Real Republicans don’t raise taxes except in an emergency, and even then the tax increase should be temporary to meet the emergency with an automatic “sunset” or repeal provision built in.  Hall County Schools have no emergency.  Their failure to plan for a new school opening is not our problem.  Gas prices are up, so they make a new plan for picking up kids with busses. 

Your Hall County Republican Party is taking steps to “police our ranks” to remove RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) from our midst.  Any elected official in Hall County that votes to raise taxes needs to be prepared to run for re-election as a Democrat if the steps we are taking come to pass next year.  In addition, the Hall County GOP Executive Committee can take whatever action they feel is necessary to police our ranks in the interim period.  Non-partisian offices are a way for Democrats to “hide” in the open and call themselves “conservative” without really being conservative or risking being called a Democrat.  I will post a complete list of all elected officials (and candidates) and their status with the Hall County GOP in the near future.

Clean, open, transparent, ethical, frugal, and limited government is what we want.

But the employee says she did not get the warning either.  I don’t think one letter for $3M is enough.  More heads should roll?

Ballowe: School leaders didn’t hear city’s tax collection warning

Way to go “Citizens!!!”  I could not make the meeting, but I’m glad some of you attended to tell the Gainesville City School Board what it means when you are millions of dollars in debt, you don’t know how you got there, and you want to make someone else pay for it. 

Lets look at the details.  The elected officials “thought” they had almost $1M in surplus based upon the projections of someone who resigned over9 months ago.  Now they announce that they are in the red to the tune of $7M and it will take 2 years to get that debt paid off!  That is an $8M difference!  And they can’t explain it?  Maybe instead of an “audit” they need a GBI or FBI investigation?  The money went to someone that the school board or the superintendent approved and signed the checks for.  How can they be suprised?  Did they not balance their checkbook each month?  A good start would be for everyone in charge of budget and finance to resign or be fired (The Superindendent? Janet Allison?), THEN do a criminal investigation.  No tax increase is warranted, the salary saved from all the firings will help, and tightening their belts will do the rest.

Remember a few weeks ago?  Remember the early Democrat tax increase warning signs I talked about here?  How disingenuous to announce a tax increase was required because of future budget projections NOT becuase they were already in debt.  So does that mean they didn’t know about being $8M in debt just a few weeks ago?  Or did they know and they where trying to distract the taxpayers with talk about future expenses?  Most likely the latter. Democrats love to raise taxes and will use any flimsy excuse to do so.  In this case the excuse is, “Where did the money go?  We need more please!”

Read The Times story here–>Residents blast tax increase plan.  Thanks to Jeff Gill who has been all over this story.  He has been very balanced and conservative in his reporting, and he took the extra step of doing the math for us to show that the school board wants each taxpayer in Gainesville to donate an extra $200 per year or so to make up for their mistakes.

This is what happens when you let Democrats run your government people.  It is great to “blast” them, but you have to un-elect the school board or you will always get a tax increase.

Atlanta has used a mulligan on the social studies portion of the CRCT for 6th and 7th graders for the 2007-8 school year.  If I understand this right, the test was over different material than what our children were taught in class.  So then the brains who developed the test and the brains who wrote the curriculum weren’t communicating very well?  Then all our children lost a year of social studies education that they won’t get back.  Wonder how much of our money was wasted on the wrong testing?  Who will pay?  I wonder when we will be asked for a tax increase to fix their mistakes.  Our children get tested based upon their ability.  Who is going to grade the administrators?  Where is the answer book?  No wonder we are 49th in education, apparently the teachers don’t have the answer book either.

Read The Times coverage of this issue here –>State throws out social studies portion of CRCT

Once again, Democrats and their appointed minions look to YOUR pocketbook to fund their excesses.  As widely reported, the Gainesville City Superintendent Dr. Steven Ballowe makes over $210,000 per year (plus benefits that probably include insurance and a free car and free gas for that car).  Janet Allison, the finance chief for Ballowe, says that the proposed budget for the 2008-9 school year is $3,300,000 in the red.  Her solution?  Reduce spending?  Become more efficient?  No way!  “[We’re probably going to have to increase the [tax] rate,” she says.  Sammy Smith, chairman and long time Hall County Democratic activist and consultant, concurred with Janet Allison’s conclusion.

A call to the Gainesville School Board office estimated only 6,000 students in the City Schools.  Dr. Ballowe makes about $35 for each student enrolled.  Hall County schools are MUCH larger with 24,777 students in 2007 and the superintendent, William Schofield,  makes “only” $173,000 or $6 per student.  A bargain by comparison.  The President of the United States only makes $400,000 or $0.0014 per citizen.

I suggest that elected officials and their bureaucrats look to their own pocketbooks before they look to ours for ways to balance the budget.  Average salary for administrators is over $95,000, almost 4 times more than the citizens who make an average of $26,000, and almost twice what the Gainesville teachers make (an average of $51,000). 

As the population grows so does the money generated by the same tax rate.  There is NO reason to increase the tax rate.  If the population is not generating the taxes needed at the current tax rate, because of illegal immigration or other factors, then it is the bureaucrats that need to look for a solution.  According to Democrats, there is ALWAYS some “good” reason to raise taxes.  Right now schools have no incentive to do anything but raise taxes.  That is, until you hold them accountable.  There are 2 chances for you to make a public comment on the tax increase:  May 28th, 10AM, at New Holland Core Knowledge Academy and May 29th, 6PM, at Gainesville High School.

Thanks to Jeff Gill at The Times for covering this issue.  If you live in the City of Gainesville, let Sammy and the others know that they don’t need more taxes, they just need to tighten their belt.