2 Comments to 'Fourth and Gill vs. Farragut: who pays more toward our schools?'
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Fourth and Gill vs. Farragut: who pays more toward our schools?
Posted By katie allison granju
Matt Edens argues (in addressing a blog post from Brian Hornback), that folks living in the city’s revitalized city neighborhoods are likely paying more than their share of taxes toward the stellar schools that exist far outside those same neighborhoods:
At least Hornback doesn’t trot out the tired old “yes, but folks in Farragut pay more in property taxes” argument. The tax rate is the same countywide. An individual homeowner’s county tax bill out in Farragut may be higher, but that’s not due to some government conspiracy. Instead, it is simply a function of property values, which are largely a reflection of that age-old homebuyer’s question: “What are the schools like?”
Still, putting myself in a Farragut parent’s place, I can understand the attitude. After all, they do pay a lot of property taxes. Shouldn’t they expect schools that correspond to the expenditure? The same sentiment, however much Hornback would be loath to admit it, is buried within the Fourth and Gill letter when it talks about the “challenges for Knoxville’s urban communities.” After all, appraisals per square foot have reached the point where Fourth and Gill homeowners are paying as much for their underperforming schools as folks out in Farragut pay for their schools. (The town of Farragut’s website, by the way, trumpets its “Great Knox County and private schools” immediately after bragging it “has no real estate taxes for homeowners.”). In fact, once the city’s greater sales-tax contribution is factored in, Fourth and Gill homeowners are probably paying more.
May 28th, 2008
In answer to your headline question, I would say Farragut.
It’s a funny situation isn’t it. People move to raise families where the schools are solid, and the money for schools follows the families who can pay the highest taxes.
How can we adequately address this problem? The children being raised in 4th and Gill, in downtown, in Park Ridge, in Mechanicsville, all deserve the opportunity to go to a properly funded and equipped school. For, if public education is to be provided for some it must at least be equally distributed, right?
It’s an argument as old as public education itself but Knoxville must learn to address it in it’s own way. With a new superintendent and many new county commissioners we can hopefully begin to educate the children of this county in a way that is beneficial for all.