Taxation and Spending in School Districts

My CP does not directly have the authority to raise funds through taxes although there is a channel that it can go through to do so. As a teacher, she cannot directly raise taxes because she does not have the authority to do so. However, if she can demonstrate the importance of getting more funds to the School Board she has the ability to influence the raising of taxes. School boards have the authority to raise property taxes if they are in need of more funding for their school district. Although the state has to give each school board funds for education, they are often not budgeted enough money to be able to effectively run a school district. In order to compensate for the lack of funding, school boards can propose to raise property taxes in their district to make up for this loss. I believe that this proposal has to be approved by voters in that district before it goes into effect.

Property taxes can be a bit controversial because they rank low in acceptability and accountability in comparison to other taxes. These taxes are applied based on assessment of the house or property which will determine the value of the lot. Once a rate of taxation is placed on that property, the owner will pay the pay the amount based on the rate of taxation and the value of the house. In this way, pieces of property that are worth more will produce more income for the school board that is trying to raise money. Because school boards raise money based on the district that they serve, the can be controversial in the unequal distribution in property values in different counties. Poor counties will yield for poor school districts while rich counties will yield for rich school districts. In addition, it should be noted that assessments of property values can also be over-assessed, under-assessed or just right. So in this way, individuals could be paying more or less than they should be in property taxes.

Napa Valley is home to well-valued property because of the vineyards and presence of well-off individuals. For this reason, the school district can easily raise money through property taxes by raising the local property taxes. However, Carolyn would have to make the case to her school that she needs more funding for her P.E. program to make something happen. Then, her school administrators would have to go to the school board to propose that she needs more funds. Because she does not need that much money, the school board would most likely try to budget her some more money that has already been raised. On the other hand, if all the P.E. programs in the district went to the school board and asked for more funding, the school board would likely have to hike property taxes in order to meet the budget needs. Because of the enactment of No Child Left Behind, funds have been diverted away from programs like P.E., music, art and other programs that are deemed unnecessary to meeting the high academic standards in English-language Arts, math and science. This makes it more and more difficult for P.E. programs like Carolyn’s to receive more funding.

In regards to schools themselves, they are associated with the spending side of the funds that are raised by taxes. This also includes programs within the schools like the P.E. program. The school board is what is directly associated with raising taxes. In different states and school districts, the citizens have veered away from property taxes to raise funds for schools and have instead opted to raise sales tax or higher income taxes. The argument behind doing this is it is more evenly distributed across the board and it also allows school districts that have lower property values to be able relieved of the  burden of having a poor funding pool. In other cases, it has been proposed that school boards should apply a service tax. This would mean that only those families that have a student attending a public school would have to pay taxes or another fee for the use of that service. That would heavily place the burden on the families and avoid having single people or senior citizens pay.