What's Pennies Got to Do With It?

October 21, 1997

It seems like there's a ton of rhetoric flying around these days over the proposed sales tax increase and increasing spending for Orange County Public Schools. As with any complicated issue, those interests with political agendas want to oversimplify to manipulate the outcome - you start to loose track of the real issues in all of the partisan posturing. I see one incontrovertible fact: the school system in Central Florida is and has been in a state of crisis for some time now.

I must admit that I'm at a bit of a loss about how to vote. The city and those in favor of the tax claim that the extra money is needed to bolster our ailing schools. Those against any increase in taxes period cite past abuses and waste, but they don't seem to be all that concerned about increasing education funding.

Why do we as citizens continue to let the spin doctors present us with flawed either/or choices when neither one brings about an effective solution? Remember the proposed sugar tax? The split in the voting showed pretty conclusively that the voters really didn't understand what they were voting for or against. They were overwhelmingly in favor of the tax, but they voted against the proposition that would have given the vote teeth.

Before I agree to an increase in taxes, I'd like to see hard numbers - how much money would be raised, specifically how and where it would be spent. Ideally, I'd also like to be convinced that the money couldn't be raised by eliminating the absurd waste of our taxdollars that we all see every day.

The issue here should not be whose political agendas get forwarded by the result of the imminent vote. The voters on this issue need a non-partisan education about the realities of improving education in Orange County. What's at stake is nothing less than the future. Already we have a generation of kids graduating who are basically untrainable for employment because they lack basic math and English skills. Project twenty years into the future and you get a frightening picture. A lot more money needs to be spent - especially on paying teachers a rewarding salary. Of course, that's just my two cents.

--Ross Severn

Ross Severn
I'm a teacher of history at a local all girls Catholic school. I travel any time I get the chance - I'm trying to explore as much of the world as I can. In the summers, I lead school trips as a way to help fund my exploration. I'm also fond of trying weird cultural foods from everywhere I go.