Is This Fair? $7,600 to educate one student in Tiny!
By Al Taylor
Your Federation made a deputation to the Simcoe County Board of Education Finance Committee on March 16, 1995, demanding that the Board not increase education taxes. This is my second presentation in the last two years. Hopefully, the message is starting to get through.
Mayor Leads Protest
Mayor Anthony Lancia is in the forefront of opposition to unfair taxation. On the same evening, he, too, made a deputation to the Board urging the Finance Committee to “hold the line” on education taxes. His deputation was the first time, to anyone’s memory, that a Simcoe County Municipality has ever made a presentation to the Board. Also present from Tiny Township Council were: Deputy Mayor Doug Taylor and Councillor Susan Kronschnabl.
County Support
Also in attendance were approximately 40 persons supporting the Federation and Mayor Lancia’s deputations, including representatives from various Simcoe County ratepayer groups: Big Bay Point District Association, North Mara Beach Residents Association, Severn Township Ratepayers Association, Severn River Association of Property Owners, Eight Mile Point Trustees & Cottagers Association and Glenwood Beach Association.
The Hypothetical–Does “NO INCREASE” Really Mean NO INCREASE?
Subsequent to the deputations, the Simcoe Board of Education issued its report on the effect on local mill rates IF a “no increase” budget were adopted for 1995.
The mill rate for property owners in Port McNicoll would go up 5.2%. The mill rate in Tiny would go up over 3.19% and, in part of Old Tecumseth, the mill rate would actually go down 6.43%.
60% of the 60 local mill rates would go up and the rest would get a decrease. Now, remember that is based on a “No Increase” budget. If this isn’t new math, it must be new madness!
The Reality
In April, 1995, Jack Garner, Chairman of the Finance Committee, announced a 1.1% increase in education taxes. For Tiny Township residents, that translates into a 4.2% increase. Why? It is because of a so called “equalization formula” which no one can explain, but is a direct result of Tiny losing its important commercial tax base to Midland through restructuring. Midland’s education tax increase was 0.6%.
Is This Fair?
Tiny Township, according to Trustee Linda Carder, will pay the Board a whacking $3,800,000 for 500 township students! That’s $7,600 per student! Good grief, at those prices we could send them all to a private school and still save money.
Ms. Carey Moran, writing in the Midland Free Press on April 5, 1995, in an article (“Penny Wise, Pound Foolish”), wrote: “I would suggest that if you [Tiny ratepayers] don’t want to pay the school tax, sell your property to someone who will and go back to where you came from.” [Ms. Moran’s perspective is that of a mother of three (3) young children.]
Imagine, if we were not here, who would pay the taxes? We, Tiny residents who have the burden, resent Tiny’s residents being verbally trashed when we pay more than our fair share of education taxes.
Your Federation is committed, more than ever, to bring sanity and fairness to education taxes.
