The three Madison County school boards and other local leaders are doing a 180 on the oft debated county wide sales tax increase.  Now they want it off the ballot on Feb. 5 so that they can focus on a “grassroots” campaign to convince voters to approve a property tax increase in a future election.  Clearly they realize that the vote is destined for dismal failure; a sentiment echoed by Commissioners Faye Dyer and Mo Brooks, strong opponents, who want the vote to remain.

Personally I think that a property tax increase has about the same chance of passing as the sales tax increase: slim.  The biggest problem with the current approach is that it is county wide.  It is quite easy to make a very compelling argument that the Huntsville City school system does not need any more money - and in fact could get by with less if they could bring in effective management that would be willing to consolidate schools that are nearly half empty.  The county, on the other hand, appears to be genuinely cash strapped, but must convince tax averse voters to agree to an increase.  Their problems are that the management hasn’t exactly been a model of consistency and that some might question why they continue to fall behind even though inflation adjusted per pupil revenue has grown in recent years.  So even if Madison County “needs” the money, why should Huntsville be burdened with a manifestly unnecessary tax increase as well?

Regardless of the type of tax increase they seek, they face an uphill battle.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 5:40 am and is filed under Education, Madison County, Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.