Milwaukee Public Schools is probably in the running for one of the worst school districts in the United States. Yet the taxpayers keep letting the administration spend OUR money on ridiculous things. Early this morning, taxpayers were screwed again with a budget that will increase property taxes 2% for this year, and 4% for last year (because someone added wrong and we didn’t get screwed enough last year).
As far as I’m concerned, until MPS can actually educate children to read, write and add, there should be no extra money and no extras. You get a building, you get teachers, you get desks, and you get books. Nothing else.
Here are just a few ways the Milwaukee School Board has dreamed up to waste several million more dollars of taxpayer money :
- $375,000 to expand driver’s education
- $62,000 to hire students to work in the the two “nature centers” operated by MPS
- $101,475 for a “policy analyst,” a new employee who would spend time doing financial analysis on behalf of the school board
The best part about all this extra spending? MPS is actually looking at a DROP IN STUDENTS. Enrollment is expected to go down 3.5%, or 87,773 students. So on a per capita basis, the spending is going up a lot.
Wait, aren’t there nitwits on the county board that want to expand the bus system? There’s no need for MPS to expand driver’s education – can’t everyone just take this scary good bus system? Maybe the MPS board could should some actual fiscal restraint sometime.
More so, maybe if MPS students want to be able to drive, maybe they can pay for their driver’s education? That’s what I did in high school. Then again, I’m a product of a school system that isn’t MPS.
I really wouldn’t mind paying the ridiculously high level of property taxes, of which MPS takes a good half, if the return was comparable. When I see other cities, similar in population size, do more that this city with less property tax revenue, I really start questioning my sanity considering I bought and continue to own a house in the city.
I suppose fiscal responsibility will never become a reality in this city when we continue to elect and re-elect civic leaders who are befuddled career politicians, like Tom Barrett, or obvious criminals, like McJackson. They can just play to the lowest-common denominators to keep their politcal careers moving.
People like us who demand more of our government and want to keep more of our money aren’t heard over the larger voting base that says “Life’s unfair, give me more, I don’t care who else picks up the tab.” What do we expect from civic leaders when there is a voting populace that will trade their votes for $5. These McGee $5 voters are just indiciative of the parasitic squeeky wheels that have transformed Milwaukee into what it is today.