This page was last updated on July 8, 2004.

Separate and unequal; Editorial; Beaver County Times; July 4, 2004.  This editorial was not on the Times web site at the time I wrote this critique.

Before I dissect the subject editorial, I need to make a few points.

• I am not for or against property taxes.  I believe the residents of each municipality and government school district should be able to choose the tax mix and rates that make the most sense for their demographics.  More details about my position regarding government school taxes can be found on this web site.
• This critique does not argue for or against the property tax.  Its purpose is to demonstrate nothing in the editorial supports its conclusions.
• The Times tried the same "logic" as in this editorial back in 2002 using Aliquippa as the "poor" example.¹  That is, funding in income or property "poor" government school districts is substandard.  As I do below, I showed the flawed facts and logic.²  Someone at the Times hopes you won't remember.

The predictable conclusion of the editorial is that government school revenue must be collected at the commonwealth level, not the local level.  The conclusion is predictable because the Times consistently supports positions characteristic of big government.

The editorial cites a bunch of facts but does not tie them together with legitimate logic.

The editorial leads off by saying, "Tax hikes in Center Area and Rochester Area show need to modernize the system."  "Modernize" is Times code for tax shifting and central taxation by the commonwealth.

The editorial makes a big deal that one mill of property tax in the Center Area School District (CASD) generates more revenue than in the Rochester Area School District (RASD).  I have two responses.

First, so what?  No two taxing districts get the same revenue from the same rate regardless of the tax type.  Total property, property value, incomes, volume of sales, population, et cetera are the reasons.  For a given sales tax rate, do we expect Wyoming to generate the same revenue as California?  The local government school tax rates for CASD and RASD currently are 45.1 and 46 mills, respectively.  Therefore, the property owners in both school districts pay virtually the same tax rate.  But the editorial is more concerned with the increase than with the total rate paid.  Why?  The Times knows readers will look at the equivalent tax rates and think, "that sounds fair to me."

Second, I hope so.  At 2,000 vs. 1,143, CASD has 75% more students to pay for than RASD but only 62% more residents.  If one mill didn't generate more revenue for CASD, the CASD rate would be far higher than for RASD.  If one mill in CASD generated the same revenue as in RASD, the CASD rate would need to be 129 mills to generate the current revenue, nearly three times the RASD rate!  Would this make the Times happy?

Further, though it mentioned the data, the editorial kind of glossed over the fact that CASD residents shoulder nearly twice as much of their government schools' costs as do RASD residents, at 62.1% vs. 34.2%.  In other words, CASD taxpayers subsidize RASD.  Therefore, it is the greater local revenue in districts like CASD that allows districts like RASD to have comparable tax rates.  How is this unfair to RASD?  If anything, it is unfair to CASD.

The Times relies on the old "it's not fair to the children" line, though it is untrue.  The Times wants you to believe per-student funding in "poor" districts is not what it should be.  The Times withheld the fact that the Standard & Poors report cited in the editorial showed RASD ($9,224) had 12.1% more revenue per student than CASD ($8,227) for the 2001-2002 school year.  That's not all.  RASD had more revenue per student than the state ($9,217), county ($9,200), and peer ($8,638) averages.  RASD spent more per student and local residents paid far less per student than CASD, but somehow this was all unfair to RASD?³  On which planet?

The bottom line is this.  The Times believes in the principle of big government that says taxes should be collected and dispersed as far up the government chain as possible.  The Times simply does not believe in the conservative concepts of local funding and local control.  Frankly, I'm surprised the editorial didn't advocate a federal takeover of all government schools in the name of "fairness," but perhaps that's for a future editorial.

1. Go back to school; Editorial; Beaver County Times; October 14, 2002.  This editorial is not on the Times web site.

2. Real world data; Robin Cox; Beaver County Times; October 27, 2002.

3. Here's an update for Aliquippa.  In the 2001-2002 school year, Aliquippa had revenue of $10,055/student, 22.2% greater than CASD.  Via local taxes, Aliquippa residents supplied only 29.6% of government school revenue, less than half the burden of CASD residents.

© 2004 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.