Skykomish School District 404 voters face an important ballot issue. They are being asked to approve yet another 4 year Property Tax Levy.
District 404 has the highest per pupil cost in the state and consistently ranks at or near the bottom in achievement.
This vote isn’t about ‘the kids’. It’s also not about school bus maintenance, school bus drivers or janitors.
This vote is about the District’s failure to reign in labour costs for supervision, administration, staff and teachers.
District 404 has more paid employees than it does students.
100 years ago, districts with only 40 students, would have an overhead consisting of a one room schoolhouse and one teacher.
In spite of this seeming disadvantage, students received a much more comprehensive education then versus today. This is a fact, not opinion. Today’s high school graduates, and even teachers, are unable to pass written tests that ninth graders had to pass in 1900 before being admitted to high school.
Dumbing down standards, scheming, self-flattery and manipulating statistics cannot hide the fact that Skykomish District financial management, oversight and discipline are virtually non-existent.
Billy Atkinson, Skykomish School District 404’s ‘community liaison officer’, says everything is coming up roses here in Sky and it will be even more beautiful, if voters just continue the Property Tax Levy morphine drip that District 404 has come to rely upon.
Despite Atkinson’s version of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, School District 404’s Levy exists solely to keep self-indulgent supervision, administration, staff, teachers and propagandists like Atkinson, employed at salary and benefit levels they could never dream of achieving in the real world.
District 404 receives ample revenues; it’s their expenses that remain way out of line. They need that extra fix of taxpayer juice the Levy provides, so ‘educators’ can continue high flying lifestyles, that in some cases include free homes, free vehicles and even free gasoline.
Isn’t it bad enough that taxpayers are already forced to pay for the privilege of having Atkinson spoon feed us a steady diet of misinformation that sugarcoats what is really a bitter pill?
District 404 property taxes are already high and continuing to rise.
Should a privileged class of elite ‘educators’ live high on the hog, while the rest of us are forced to live within our means, making do with what we have?
Does it make sense for struggling home owners to continue paying hundreds of extra dollars a year in property taxes just to support Billy and friends?
Times are tough right now. Let’s keep our money out of Billy’s pockets and in our own for a change.
Vote NO!
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