Last in Pay

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One of the big arguments that comes up with bringing up teacher pay is bringing up the pay of other professionals. Is it fair to raise taxes on all of these OTHER professionals so teachers can get paid more? As I have said, it is purely ignorant to raise regressive sales taxes for teacher pay when the money is already there (heck, probably sitting in reserves). This is about presenting intelligent plans to raise teacher pay, not knee jerk reactions. People want this increase SO bad, they are willing to fall back on fiscally irresponsible and ignorant taxation plans to get it. That my friends is called GREED.

Let’s pay teachers more, but let’s pay everybody else more to, because if that happens, there will be plenty of school funding sources to go around.

I hope the sales tax plan fails on Monday, but I also hope a doable plan comes forward without raising sales taxes.

lastinpay

Governor’s ‘Ignorant’ Pay Teacher plan fails by one vote

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I guess I am not really elated, it should have failed by a lot more. There will be a reconsideration tomorrow. There was one excused vote today. It could still eventually pass.

I have said from the beginning any plan that uses an increase in sales taxes is short-sighted and fiscally irresponsible.

Think about it, just for a moment. While almost half of school kids in the SF School District get free or reduced lunches (because their parents are living in poverty and can’t afford to buy food) the solution for higher teacher pay is to RAISE the tax on food that these student’s parents can’t afford. I guess as long as teacher’s can afford to buy themselves lunch, the FEDs will continue to feed the needy.

There are options, SEVERAL options;

• Use 100% of lottery money to fund education by upping the state’s take.

• Equalize school administrator pay with teacher pay (we are 26th in the nation for admin pay).

• Reduce reserves of school districts and funnel that money towards teacher pay. I have never understood putting tax dollars in savings accounts. Either spend it, or give it back.

• Eliminate several sales tax exemptions like on advertising.

• Equalize ag land property taxes with urban taxes. Let’s face it, farming is more and more a corporate venture not a small family business.

• Implement more taxes on tourism.

We have options, hundreds of options. Raising taxes on food, utilities and clothing is short sighted and counter productive. Let’s raise teacher pay, but let’s do it in an educated way and responsibly.

Huether’s Hypocrisy of Audits

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After listening to Mike’s temper tantrums this week, especially about monitoring these numbers like a hawk, and the lies from his finance office, his hypocrisy is beginning to show.

His comments yesterday about audits and the CVB Bid tax weren’t even close to reality. He wants to audit a $2.9 million dollar tax so he can get a million of it for what? Cheerleading & Dart tournaments?

This is were his hypocrisy kicks in. He wants to audit such a minute amount of money (that is apparently working as it should) but hasn’t let the public see any expenses or audits when it comes to the Events Center. Finance Director Tracy Turbak even admitted on Tuesday that he doesn’t even know if he has change order files but knows what the subcontractors were paid, maybe. How is that? You don’t know what the change orders are, and you have no idea how much money Mortenson made, but he can get you that information, as long as the Argus wasn’t suing for it.

I agree with you Mayor Huether, let’s audit the CVB, and let’s release that audit the same day as the EC building expense and siding settlement audits get released. We could throw one big audit party. I’ll drive the black Mariah.
But all this audit and tax talk has also got me thinking about the mayor’s possible opposition to the car rental fees for the development foundation. While we may both agree on this, I have a feeling the Mayor opposes it for two reasons. First off because he wants it all for the city and secondly he was pretty much left out of the negotiations when it came to Foundation Park and the GOED. As the rumor goes, “Foundation Park is moving forward in spite of Mayor Huether”.

Seems there is a lot of things that are moving forward these days ‘in spite’ of Mayor Huether

Mayor Huether says ‘The Status Quo is our Nemesis’ when it comes to the bid tax

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEVkjpmS_VU[/youtube]

bid-tax

“Just a few things the mayor wants to spend hotel tax on.”

As I have often said, if the Status Quo is working, you don’t need to fix it. In some bizarro world where Huether lives he seems to think people are mis-spending money if he can’t have it. Makes you wonder how bad of financial shape the city is in if he needs to get his hands on a portion of the $2.9 million.