It’s Time to Revolutionize Connecticut’s
Educational System, To Cap Local Property Taxes, and Reform State
Binding Arbitration Laws
The following Letter was
forwarded to Governor Rell on January 6, 2008 by The
Federation of Connecticut
Taxpayer Organizations.
Dear Governor Rell:
It’s Time to Revolutionize Connecticut’s Educational System,
To Cap Local Property Taxes, and
Reform State Binding Arbitration Laws
The Federation continues to commend and support your call to
CAP LOCAL PROPERTY TAXES. With the
decline in the economy and jobs lost, the next tsunami to strike Connecticut homeowners
will be the loss of their homes through Tax Lien Sales unless our property
taxes are brought under control.
Property Tax Caps are a focus of the following Jan 5, 2009 Wall Street
article entitled Calls Grow to Cap Property Taxes http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123111472983052521-lMyQjAxMDI5MzAxNTEwMTU0Wj.html
The Federation also believes that the time is right to
REVOLUTIONIZE PUBLIC EDUCATION in Connecticut
and to provide taxpayers with greater transparency and accountability of the
spending of our tax dollars.
We request that you empanel a Blue Ribbon Commission to
review the following initiatives with the goal of providing Connecticut students with the tools they
need to succeed upon graduation and taxpayers with the accountability and
transparency they deserve.
The State of New
Hampshire recently announced their intent to
implement an EARLY GRADUATION PROGRAM as noted within the following
article. The Federation suggests that Connecticut should
consider a similar program. http://www.districtadministration.com/newssummary.aspx?news=yes&postid=51393
A report produced by the School Finance Redesign
Project (SFRP), with funding by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
captioned FACING THE FUTURE: FINANCING PUBLIC SCHOOLS was recently released. The
report can be accessed through the link which follows and provides valuable information which suggests that we don’t need to dedicate
more money to improve our educational system but to instead use the money
already allocated more effectively for the benefit of our students. Download Full Report
A visit to the following web site http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/view/csr_pubs/251 will offer further insight into the report which proposes to
Base accountability on performance—make superintendents and
the chief of state schools responsible for judging school performance and
finding better options for children whose schools do not teach them
effectively.
Additional
proposals include:
- Drive funds to schools based on student counts—the money would be
given to principals to allocate and manage within their individual
schools. A weighting formula could be used to provide extra funds for
disadvantaged students.
- Concentrate federal funds on low-income students—direct money on
the basis of student characteristics right down to the individual
student’s school.
- Redesign states’ school finance systems for continuous
improvement—demand innovation and continuous improvement, keeping what
works and discarding what does not.
With educational costs soaring in Connecticut,
transparency is key to providing accountability for
the tax dollars spent. This
transparency can be enhanced through CHECKBOOK REGISTERS ON LINE and CITIZEN
AUDIT COMMITTEES.
The Mackinac Center
campaign captioned Show Michigan the
Money provides for check book registers on line for the benefit of the
public which finances public education and state government. http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=9398
Transparency
can be further enhanced by supporting the establishment of CITIZEN AUDIT
COMMITTEES in all Connecticut
school districts (New York
State mandated this as of
2006) to provide oversight of school spending practices. Dr. Armand A.
Fusco, a retired Connecticut school superintendent, has been instrumental in
starting such audit committees in several districts at no cost.
In September of 2008, the Federation directed a letter to
you requesting that you propose to the State legislature reforms to State Binding Arbitration
laws which would in turn give municipalities the tools necessary to manage
their budgets. They include:
- Allow towns to suspend Binding Arbitration for up to three years
due to a downturn in the economy.
- Require that local arbitration awards be ratified by a majority
vote of the local legislative body.
As in state government, if the awards are rejected, the process
must begin again.
- Prohibit arbitrators from accessing a town’s undesignated savings
account to fund union contracts.
The Federation believes that the timing
is right for our proposals to Cap Local Property Taxes, to explore
Revolutionizing Connecticut’s Educational System, and to reform State Binding
Arbitration laws in that our economy is in decline, jobs are being lost, and we
have a responsibility to use our existing resources more effectively.
.
In the majority of the 169 towns
throughout Connecticut,
more than 60% of municipal budgets are dedicated to meeting educational
demands.
Last month, James Finley, executive
director of the Connecticut
Conference of Municipalities issued a plea to the State’s Board of Education
not to rollback $237 million in school aid already dedicated to
municipalities. You can be assured that
next year a similar request will be made as public education costs increase
resulting in Connecticut taxpayers paying one
of the highest property taxes in the nation, second to New Jersey.
We are hopeful that the Teachers Unions will embrace the
forward thinking concepts as proposed by the Bill Gates Foundation and will, in
turn, work for performance based standards among its members in order to
provide a quality education for all students in Connecticut.
Again, the
full report can be accessed through the following link:
Download
Full Report (PDF: 1701 K)
Thank you for considering our requests. We look forward to your response.
Susan Kniep, President
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032