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| Source: Allegheny County Children's Fund Initiative |
Ballot Question
“Shall the Allegheny County Home Rule Charter be amended to establish the Allegheny County Children’s Fund, funded by Allegheny County levying and collecting an additional 0.25 mills, the equivalent of $25 on each $100,000 of assessed value, on all taxable real estate, beginning Jan. 1, 2019, and thereafter, to be used to improve the well-being of children through the provision of services throughout the county including early childhood learning, afterschool programs and nutritious meals?”
Alternate wording. Should we increase your Allegheny County real estate tax by 5.3% to create a fund to be used for unspecified purposes to "benefit" children. While I am all for helping children on a needs basis this just creates a $17mm slush fund to be used by the County Executive for whatever he or she wishes, with advice from a "citizens council" comprised of individuals he or she appoints.
ReplyDeleteNo
Aren't there already some services for that provided thru the AIU and DART? Is this to balance state program cuts?
ReplyDeleteSounds nice – The Allegheny County Children’s Fund! To improve the well-being of children!
ReplyDeleteWhat they are NOT telling you:
(1) The ballot question fails to disclose who will control the money and who will decide how it will be spent.
(2) Property owners, especially seniors, are already taxed enough!
(3) There are already multiple, and generous, Federal, State, Local, non-profit, and pre-school programs addressing the well-being of children.
(4) This County-wide tax scheme will enable the taxing of suburban property owners in order to fund politically-motivated spending in the City of Pittsburgh and other selected political strongholds.
(5) Beware the vague and open-ended “through the provision of services” statement, which could cover just about anything going forward.
*Let’s re-visit the Allegheny County Regional Asset District (RAD) sales tax increase of (only) 1%, which was imposed in 1995 and raised Allegheny County’s sales tax to 7% – the highest in the state outside of Philadelphia County/City.
Because the City of Pittsburgh claimed it could no longer support the Pittsburgh Zoo, The Aviary, Carnegie Library, Phipps Conservatory and its parks, and sold to County voters as the “Library Tax” (which sounded nice and innocuous and not too much to ask, possibly temporary, right?), this County-wide sales tax levy has now (23 years later) taken 2 billion dollars out of the pockets of Allegheny County residents.
Though originally imposed to “support cultural assets” (a very vague term used, of course, just like “improve the well-being of children” in the upcoming tax-increase ballot question), a judge later ruled that RAD taxpayer millions could also be lavished on corporate welfare to build and maintain Heinz Field, PNC Park, The Convention Center, and more recently, PPG Paints Arena.
The school district’s Century of Excellence fundraiser was sold to the public as going towards improving kids education opportunities, but it actually lost around $700,000 already in the district’s coffers if I’m not mistaken.
ReplyDeleteBeware of schemes to “help” kids.
Vote No. Early education is a proven erroneous concept. Children today are receiving a vastly simple curriculum/education. Why? Because the teachers are significantly under qualified in the subject matters they teach. As a result, expansion of time in education is irrelevant. We need subject matter experts in the classroom and we need a completely overhauled curriculum. Teaching the basics of reading, writing and math goes on throughout the entire k-12 curriculum, and produces students who cannot even write, have no idea how to calculate a basic derivative, have no idea how to make money, have absolutely no life skills and cannot speak a second language. Stop wasting money on an education system that merely delivers paychecks to unqualified teachers. Educate your own child, because trust me they are receiving dribble in the classroom and beyond.
ReplyDelete5:15, with 15 seconds of research you could have found answers to most of your questions here:
ReplyDeletehttps://ourkidsourcommitment.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/okocINFOGRAPHICZ.pdf
I’m not necessarily endorsing the proposal, but suggesting that there’s no information available to voters is disingenuous.
12:23, first get some sleep. You seem angry. Second, if I take your positions as gospel, this proposal seems like it would do some good.
But 12:23, we do now have a Hall of Fame, a million dollar turfed practice field and a million dollar bridge.
ReplyDeleteThere are priorities in education don’t you know.
A good letter in the Trib:
ReplyDelete“On Nov. 6 Allegheny County voters are being urged by the group Our Kids. Our Commitment. ( ourkidsourcommitment.org ) to vote “yes” on an amendment to the Home Rule Charter of Allegheny County establishing a “special purpose Children’s Fund.” This sounds like an honorable and noble cause, and most compassionate people are concerned for the welfare of children.
It must be pointed out, however, that this fund would be financed by “adding 0.25 mills to the real estate tax rate” as quoted in Article XV, Section 2 of the amendment. The tax increase would be levied “effective January 1, 2019.” Additionally, once instituted, County Council would “not have the authority to reduce the additional 0.25 mills of property tax levied.” There are no restrictions on increasing the tax.
Once again, taxpayers are being asked to finance another government-sanctioned program. It is difficult to identify any cost-efficient and performance-correlated government program, especially one where the funding is guaranteed and irreversible. Therefore, it is in the best interest of those being tasked with paying the bill, especially retirees and those on fixed or limited incomes, to vote “no” on this amendment.
William Fedorka
Kilbuck”
Seems seniors that oppose Wagner for Governor because he ‘supposedly’ wants to tax social security better PAY ATTENTION. Allegheny County Democrats are looking to increase a tax on your property, so they’ll be taking money from you one way or another.
Let’s see, JUST TO NAME A FEW government programs to FOR kids include:
ReplyDeleteSNAP- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
MEDICAID
CHIP- Children’s Health Insurance Program
SSI- Supplemental Security Income for qualifying children with disabilities
PA HEAD START
CHILD CARE ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
CHILD TAX CREDIT
CHILD AND DEPENDENT CARE PROGRAM
Plus there are numerous reduced milk, lunch and breakfast programs offered by various school districts and church organizations.
Do we really need another “non-profit” program that employs more managers and directors to manage it?
It is good all the above programs are in place and we should see that they are adequately funded. Seems we don’t need the overhead of another.
Like Mt. Lebanon’s Century of Excellence fundraiser, the district had plenty of money ($1,000,000 “loan” for example) to fund all the things the fundraiser paid for. Most of that taxpayer loan went to overhead and salaries/benefits, not to the kids!
Think about this!
ReplyDeleteEvery time the County reassesses your home or property that .25 mill Allegheny County Children’s Fund “tax” will go up as well and the politicians won’t have to take any heat heat for it.
A great editorial from the OST Gazette
ReplyDeletehttp://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2018/10/29/Flawed-approach-Voters-should-reject-Allegheny-County-Children-Fund-referendum/stories/201810290016
Hope everyone reads it!
That editorial was FROM the editorial board of the Post-Gazette. I heard a commercial on the radio today about the Children's Fund. It sounded to me like if you vote against it, you're a schmuck. I guess I am a schmuck.
ReplyDeleteElaine