Only 20% of taxpayers have children in the Portland Public Schools. The other 80% pay the bulk of the taxes that educate those kids. We 80 percenters expect very little for our overwhelming educational investment.
Here is what we want:
1. PPS must provide an honest, transparent annual public budget that includes the true costs of maintenance, capital improvements and unfunded liabilities.
2. PPS must achieve a four year graduation rate closer to 100% than 50%.
3. PPS must educate students, who will become voters, to understand the difference between fact and opinion. [A district wide test, created by an outside disinterested party, given to graduating seniors would be useful here.]
To date, there is NO evidence that PPS has accomplished any much less all three of these goals.
The Portland Public Schools board has mismanaged public funds that are mostly provided by 80 percenters.
The Portland Public Schools board has cheated the 80 percenters by hiding off-budget the true costs of maintenance, capital improvements and unfunded liabilities.
The Portland Public Schools board treats 80 percenters as though it was our obligation to provide as much money as PPS asks for and then to go away and let the PPS board, staff and parents decide what goals are to be achieved with our money but without our interests being considered.
The Portland Public Schools board is dishonest with, disinterested in and dismissive of 80 percenters. Unless and until this behavior changes and our goals stated above are accomplished, 80 percenters should give NO NEW MONEY TO PPS.
Here are some FACTS not opinion:
Average Portland Property Tax Going UP $484.50 - Renters UP $30-50/Month. Your Vote Counts.
$ .05/$1,000 of Assessed Value, Oregon Historical Society - Already passed
$ .14/$1,000 of Assessed Value, Portland Fire Bureau - Already passed
$ 2.65/$1,000 of Assessed Value, Portland Public Schools - On May 2011 ballot
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$ 2.84/$1,000 of Assessed Value
Average assessed value of Portland home is $170,600.
Current property tax of average Portland home is $170,600 x .0218 = $3,719
Taxes recently passed but not yet included in property tax bill of average Portland home are $170.6 x .19 = $32.41
Potential INCREASE in property tax of average Portland home if PPS tax passes is $170.6 x 2.65 = $452.09
Total passed and potential INCREASE in property tax of average Portland home is $32.41 + $452.09 = $484.50
Potential November 2011 property tax of average Portland home is $3,719+32.41+452.09= $4,203.50
Potential INCREASES for renters, $30 to $50 per MONTH.
Potential INCREASES to Portland General Electric and NW Natural property taxes that will be passed on to ratepayers is $100,000.
The PPS Tax Hike Is NOT About Kids. It Is About ADULT MISMANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC FUNDS
At the protest against the PPS tax in front of city hall on February 16th, a man introduced himself to me as a public school math teacher. He agreed that PPS had cheated on the math in the budget and that he would not teach his students to do that but supported the tax increase anyway because he hadn't gotten a raise in two years and he was owed an increase.
Some impressionable children will be manipulated by their parents and other pro school tax related authority figures to take an active part in the campaign to significantly increase property taxes on their friends, neighbors and all citizens of Portland.
These children will NOT be taught in math class, current events class or any other class that their parents, teachers, school staff and school board have been coconspirators for decades in cheating on the annual PPS public budgets by omitting the true costs of maintenance, capital improvements and unfunded liabilities.
These children will NOT be taught the connection between children cheating on a test or book report and adults cheating on a public budget document.
These children will NOT be taught that when adults lie about how they are spending other people's money it is often a criminal offense that can lead to jail.
These children will NOT be taught that the adults responsible for protecting the clients of the Housing Authority of Portland and the Portland Housing Bureau have been suspiciously negligent in abdicating their responsibility to defend low-income and poor persons who will be hit hardest.
These children will NOT be taught that some people may be taxed out of their homes and apartments by the PPS tax increase.
These children will NOT be taught in economics class that raising taxes in a recession, in a state with 10.6% unemployment and billions of dollars of revenue shortfall is bad economics and a very bad idea.
These children will NOT be taught that many if not most of the people and corporations that contributed to the PPS tax hike campaign are in it for the money.
If you are angry and/or scared about the enormous property tax hike proposed by the Portland Public Schools' Board necessitated by their mismanagement of public funds then take action.
Join your fellow outraged taxpayers on Wednesday April 27, 2011 from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM in a demonstration at Portland City Hall. Bring a sign. Bring your lunch. Bring a friend. Bring your sense of humor. Satisfy your need to do something to stop those who have mismanaged our public funds and now want us to pay for it - again.
Sign up to help organize or just commit to being there. Contact Richard Ellmyer: stopppstax@goodgrowthnw.org
Go here for updates: http://www.goodgrowthnw.org
Richard Ellmyer
North Portland 80 Percenter
Thirty-Five years of political activism. Leader of two successful efforts in 1999-2000 to stop proposed neighborhood destroying outdoor amphitheaters at PIR and the Expo Center.
Former progressive, socially liberal, fiscally conservative candidate for the North Portland House seat in the May 2010 primary. Defeated by establishment Democrat Tina Kotek, who supports the status quo which allows Public Utilities to become POLITICAL Utilities by advocating for tax increases and the related rate hikes on their customers. Kotek also supports the huge PPS property tax increases as she has every other tax bill in Salem.