The Government Has Its Hand Out Once Again
This Tuesday, May 13, residents of Tulsa County will once again be asked if they want to dig into their pockets and hand out more money.
This time it is Tulsa Community College. They are asking the homeowners of Tulsa County to allow an increase in property taxes, to fund increases in their budget, hire new faculty, and build new facilities.
For the average person who owns a $100,000 home, this increase will cost an extra $50 a year. They say it is a small price to pay for improving our local junior college. Of course, many people do not own $100,000 homes. Many people own $500,000 homes. They will obviously pay a lot more.
TCC officials say that is a small investment compared to the great return we will receive. They then threaten us, saying that businesses will not want to relocate to Tulsa if we don't show that we are interested in training future workers. Like they're flocking to our city now?
I am opposed to this tax increase. And keep in mind that up until recently, I have been employed by Tulsa Community College as a part time adjunct professor of Liberal Arts. I love the school, and appreciate what they do for students of our community. But this is the wrong time for a tax increase on Tulsa county homeowners.
Let me explain some of the reasons why I would encourage you to vote no as well.
- TCC already has a huge budget, much of which is already underwritten by property taxes.
- Everywhere you look, the college is building new facilities, and remodeling old ones.
- They have enough money that they are allowing any Tulsa county high school graduate FREE TUITION, for their entire stay at TCC, just for asking. If they can afford that, I don't think they need more money from taxpayers.
- With homeowners already stretched to the limit financially by high gas prices, high grocery prices, and foreclosures at record highs, how can TCC ask us to voluntarily fork out more money? We are operating on an increasingly thin budget all the time. Like everyone else, our gasoline and grocery line items in the budget have gone up by 60% each over the past few months. We cannot afford an additional fifty dollars a year tacked on to our mortgage.
- WE NEED TO FIX THE FREAKING STREETS! Do the people who come up with this stuff not listen to voters?! We recently turned down another measure that would have developed the river, and many voters said the reason they voted it down was because streets were a higher priority than river development. Our streets are in terrible shape! If we are going to pay higher taxes, use the money to fix the streets. Then we can talk about increasing funding to a junior college.
Now I am not the foremost expert on these kinds of issues, I admit. I just know that until officials become good stewards of the money we are already sending them, we don't need to send any more. Please, if you are a Tulsa County voter, go to the polls this Tuesday and vote no.
Here is a link to one of my favorite local blogs, where you will find a variety of thoughts on the subject.a very thorough and well-researched article from Urban Tulsa Weekly. And the author of this blog, Michael Bates, wrote a great commentary in Urban Tulsa Weekly that you should read before you vote on Tuesday. You can and should read it, and you can by clicking this link: http://www.urbantulsa.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A21057 .
My fiance and I just graduated TCC last Friday and I can tell you first hand that they have ENOUGH money.
I've spent numerous hours at all of the TCC campuses except for TCC West, and they're VERY nice already.
It really bugs me when people make quasi-threats like "businesses will move away" if we don't vote for a stupid bond measure. It brings back memories of the infuriating "come on!" girl from the Our River Yes commercials.
I'm with you. Our roads are horrendous. I just sent $1500 fixing my suspension because of four years of driving on Tulsa roads.
Ugh. In about four years Sarah and I look forward to buying a house for ourselves and I know we won't be up to paying a premium on our property taxes just so some spoiled high schoolers (and if you've ever met the "Tulsa Achieves" students you'd know what I'm talking about) who don't appreciate that they didn't have to take out loans for their educations like I did can go to classes.
Grr.
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Thanks for your insight Mike. I agree that TCC has a lot of money to go around. I taught at the NE campus, and aside from crappy chairs, they have a lot of equipment, and are doing a lot of remodeling. TCC does not need more tax money.
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