Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to calm down.

1- it won't happen. The number will be reduced to something more reasonable (the last time the council raised the property taxes for the schools, every incumbent was ousted in the next election - the council members will remember this)

2 - instead of screaming at the council not to do this everyone should be screaming at them for some oversight into MCPS. Only govt department/agency not to have an Inspector General, and it takes up more than half of the county budget! Programs that don't work - cut them! Someone needs to take a pen and rearrange their budget, putting more teachers in classrooms with smaller class sizes

3 - our schools are in huge trouble (special ed, teacher shortages, sub shortages, crumbling facilities), and something big needs to be done. I'd like to see a huge shake up at central office, wipe out most of the existing staff, and start over with a complete reorganization (and fewer central office staff, more bodies in classrooms and smaller class sizes).

And if we don't do this, or something (anyone have any good ideas, and no, not charters which have no oversight and no accountability and use public dollars for private schools, sometimes private religious schools), the massive behavior problems teachers are facing this year will get worse, and our public education system will get worse

I don't remember this. Which year, specifically, did this happen?

Leggett and Council increased the recordation tax, and the property tax by 8.7% in 2016. That was the year the county overwhelmingly voted for term limits.

Which is not at all the same as "every incumbent was ousted in the next election", which didn't happen. In 2018, each and every incumbent eligible for re-election in 2018 ran for the seat they were incumbent in, and won: Craig Rice, Sidney Katz, Nancy Navarro, Tom Hucker, and Hans Riemer. Of the other 4, who were term-limited in 2018: Marc Elrich ran for executive, and won, and Roger Berliner, George Leventhal, and Nancy Floreen ran for executive, and lost. And all of the candidates for executive who had not held county elective office in 2016 lost too (for example, David Blair). The 2018 election results are an endorsement of county office-holders in 2016, not a rejection.

Exactly- I asked the question because I thought "man, there is no way I would have remembered that. " It did absolutely lead to term limits though, yes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to calm down.

1- it won't happen. The number will be reduced to something more reasonable (the last time the council raised the property taxes for the schools, every incumbent was ousted in the next election - the council members will remember this)

2 - instead of screaming at the council not to do this everyone should be screaming at them for some oversight into MCPS. Only govt department/agency not to have an Inspector General, and it takes up more than half of the county budget! Programs that don't work - cut them! Someone needs to take a pen and rearrange their budget, putting more teachers in classrooms with smaller class sizes

3 - our schools are in huge trouble (special ed, teacher shortages, sub shortages, crumbling facilities), and something big needs to be done. I'd like to see a huge shake up at central office, wipe out most of the existing staff, and start over with a complete reorganization (and fewer central office staff, more bodies in classrooms and smaller class sizes).

And if we don't do this, or something (anyone have any good ideas, and no, not charters which have no oversight and no accountability and use public dollars for private schools, sometimes private religious schools), the massive behavior problems teachers are facing this year will get worse, and our public education system will get worse

I don't remember this. Which year, specifically, did this happen?

Leggett and Council increased the recordation tax, and the property tax by 8.7% in 2016. That was the year the county overwhelmingly voted for term limits.

Which is not at all the same as "every incumbent was ousted in the next election", which didn't happen. In 2018, each and every incumbent eligible for re-election in 2018 ran for the seat they were incumbent in, and won: Craig Rice, Sidney Katz, Nancy Navarro, Tom Hucker, and Hans Riemer. Of the other 4, who were term-limited in 2018: Marc Elrich ran for executive, and won, and Roger Berliner, George Leventhal, and Nancy Floreen ran for executive, and lost. And all of the candidates for executive who had not held county elective office in 2016 lost too (for example, David Blair). The 2018 election results are an endorsement of county office-holders in 2016, not a rejection.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to calm down.

1- it won't happen. The number will be reduced to something more reasonable (the last time the council raised the property taxes for the schools, every incumbent was ousted in the next election - the council members will remember this)

2 - instead of screaming at the council not to do this everyone should be screaming at them for some oversight into MCPS. Only govt department/agency not to have an Inspector General, and it takes up more than half of the county budget! Programs that don't work - cut them! Someone needs to take a pen and rearrange their budget, putting more teachers in classrooms with smaller class sizes

3 - our schools are in huge trouble (special ed, teacher shortages, sub shortages, crumbling facilities), and something big needs to be done. I'd like to see a huge shake up at central office, wipe out most of the existing staff, and start over with a complete reorganization (and fewer central office staff, more bodies in classrooms and smaller class sizes).

And if we don't do this, or something (anyone have any good ideas, and no, not charters which have no oversight and no accountability and use public dollars for private schools, sometimes private religious schools), the massive behavior problems teachers are facing this year will get worse, and our public education system will get worse

I don't remember this. Which year, specifically, did this happen?

Leggett and Council increased the recordation tax, and the property tax by 8.7% in 2016. That was the year the county overwhelmingly voted for term limits.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't MCPS already get like 60% of all tax revenue? Time and time again it has been shown that dumping more money into schools doesn't provide better outcomes. Japanese, Chinese Singaporean, and Swedish students run laps around American students, and they spend far less mony per pupil. Baltimore spends near the most money per pupil and they have like 3% math proficiency rate in many schools.Taxing people out of their homes and using schools and education as an excuse is a terrible idea. Teach better and force parents to parent better. No amount of money can make people be better parents. There are just a lot of lowlifes in MoCo that drag down the whole system, so I don't know why people think money will fix it.

What does 'force parents to parent better" actually mean? Could you give some examples?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to calm down.

1- it won't happen. The number will be reduced to something more reasonable (the last time the council raised the property taxes for the schools, every incumbent was ousted in the next election - the council members will remember this)

2 - instead of screaming at the council not to do this everyone should be screaming at them for some oversight into MCPS. Only govt department/agency not to have an Inspector General, and it takes up more than half of the county budget! Programs that don't work - cut them! Someone needs to take a pen and rearrange their budget, putting more teachers in classrooms with smaller class sizes

3 - our schools are in huge trouble (special ed, teacher shortages, sub shortages, crumbling facilities), and something big needs to be done. I'd like to see a huge shake up at central office, wipe out most of the existing staff, and start over with a complete reorganization (and fewer central office staff, more bodies in classrooms and smaller class sizes).

And if we don't do this, or something (anyone have any good ideas, and no, not charters which have no oversight and no accountability and use public dollars for private schools, sometimes private religious schools), the massive behavior problems teachers are facing this year will get worse, and our public education system will get worse

I don't remember this. Which year, specifically, did this happen?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It ends up being a vicious cycle.

Revenue is down (or- Elrich can't control spending). So what do we do? Raise taxes.

People with means vote with their feet to neighboring counties, and VA.

Revenue is down again- and schools are a little worse, and crime is up. So what do we do- raise taxes.

Rinse, repeat.

People with means would pay tens of thousands of dollars to avoid a property tax increase of a few hundred dollars per year? I mean, maybe, but it's not a rational response.

Except MoCo already has near the highest income taxes in the state. This is 10% increase in property tax in a single year. Keep increasing taxes at that rate and see how well thst turns out for the county 10 years from now. People will absolutely flee crushing income and property taxes. Look at Baltimore.

Montgomery County's population is increasing, not decreasing.

Increasing with low wage workers and immigrants.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't MCPS already get like 60% of all tax revenue? Time and time again it has been shown that dumping more money into schools doesn't provide better outcomes. Japanese, Chinese Singaporean, and Swedish students run laps around American students, and they spend far less mony per pupil. Baltimore spends near the most money per pupil and they have like 3% math proficiency rate in many schools.Taxing people out of their homes and using schools and education as an excuse is a terrible idea. Teach better and force parents to parent better. No amount of money can make people be better parents. There are just a lot of lowlifes in MoCo that drag down the whole system, so I don't know why people think money will fix it.

They don’t want to fix it. The money is spent to invite more lowlifes in and provide for them. This is how they keep their voting base growing and grease crony palms which provide healthy kickbacks to them.

Within 20 years Moco will be a crime ridden cesspool no different than Baltimore, Alexandria; or DC and people will still vote for the same corrupt and incompetent politicians. And they’ll keep blaming Trump or whoever the media tells them is their new bogeyman.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It ends up being a vicious cycle.

Revenue is down (or- Elrich can't control spending). So what do we do? Raise taxes.

People with means vote with their feet to neighboring counties, and VA.

Revenue is down again- and schools are a little worse, and crime is up. So what do we do- raise taxes.

Rinse, repeat.

People with means would pay tens of thousands of dollars to avoid a property tax increase of a few hundred dollars per year? I mean, maybe, but it's not a rational response.

For high earners with high value houses, the increase is substantial, especially when added every year. We got a tax assessment notice INCREASING the value of our property by $1 million dollars. The assessment is not accurate because the market has cooled down from last summer. When you add in the tax rate increase, we will be paying $12,000 MORE a year in property taxes. We will likely go from $19,000 a year in taxes to $31,000 a year. That equates to almost $2,600 in property taxes each month. I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for us having a high value home but my point is that we are not talking about a few hundred dollars.

OK, so, for people with very high assessed property values, it would be more than a few hundred dollars a year. Would you sell and move if your property taxes went up like that?

Yes, if this keeps happening. This is $12000 extra in a single year. They will keep increasing taxes with multiple rounds of assessments and tax increases. How much further does it have to go when your taxes go from $19000 per year to $31000 in a single year.? How about up to $40k? $50k?

At some point, it makes zero sense to pay $30,40,50k in taxes just for the privilege of a zip code. People will flee en masse, and the death spiral between the need to raise taxes to plus shortfalls and flight occurs faster.

Property taxes in Fairfax are so much higher than in Montgomery County. Stop being so dramatic.

You didn't consider incomes taxes too, duh. It makes MoCo was less attractive to live in, and it is already a bedroom community.

You're not considering the consistent under-assessment of properties in Maryland due to a broken assessment system.

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't MCPS already get like 60% of all tax revenue? Time and time again it has been shown that dumping more money into schools doesn't provide better outcomes. Japanese, Chinese Singaporean, and Swedish students run laps around American students, and they spend far less mony per pupil. Baltimore spends near the most money per pupil and they have like 3% math proficiency rate in many schools.Taxing people out of their homes and using schools and education as an excuse is a terrible idea. Teach better and force parents to parent better. No amount of money can make people be better parents. There are just a lot of lowlifes in MoCo that drag down the whole system, so I don't know why people think money will fix it.

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs to calm down.

1- it won't happen. The number will be reduced to something more reasonable (the last time the council raised the property taxes for the schools, every incumbent was ousted in the next election - the council members will remember this)

2 - instead of screaming at the council not to do this everyone should be screaming at them for some oversight into MCPS. Only govt department/agency not to have an Inspector General, and it takes up more than half of the county budget! Programs that don't work - cut them! Someone needs to take a pen and rearrange their budget, putting more teachers in classrooms with smaller class sizes

3 - our schools are in huge trouble (special ed, teacher shortages, sub shortages, crumbling facilities), and something big needs to be done. I'd like to see a huge shake up at central office, wipe out most of the existing staff, and start over with a complete reorganization (and fewer central office staff, more bodies in classrooms and smaller class sizes).

And if we don't do this, or something (anyone have any good ideas, and no, not charters which have no oversight and no accountability and use public dollars for private schools, sometimes private religious schools), the massive behavior problems teachers are facing this year will get worse, and our public education system will get worse

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It ends up being a vicious cycle.

Revenue is down (or- Elrich can't control spending). So what do we do? Raise taxes.

People with means vote with their feet to neighboring counties, and VA.

Revenue is down again- and schools are a little worse, and crime is up. So what do we do- raise taxes.

Rinse, repeat.

People with means would pay tens of thousands of dollars to avoid a property tax increase of a few hundred dollars per year? I mean, maybe, but it's not a rational response.

Except MoCo already has near the highest income taxes in the state. This is 10% increase in property tax in a single year. Keep increasing taxes at that rate and see how well thst turns out for the county 10 years from now. People will absolutely flee crushing income and property taxes. Look at Baltimore.

Montgomery County's population is increasing, not decreasing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course.

Democrats in MoCo are incapable of growing the economy and controlling spending. The only solution ever is to raise taxes.

Go look up the entire employment history of virtually everyone running MoCo. They've hardly ever had real jobs in their entire careers and have only worked for the govt, think tanks, or communist activist org fluff. They entirely depend on tax dollars funding their salaries, so of course they want to raise taxes. By 'not keeping up with inflation', they really mean they feel like their own personal salaries aren't keeping up with inflation, therefore raise taxes.

MoCo is turning into Baltimore - huge taxes that will cause the base to flee, flight of businesses due to hostile govt policies, and a downward death spiral where the only solution is to keep raising taxes. R.I.P. MoCo.

Preach it brother: this is truth thus all you’ll get from the willfully arrogantly ignorant is grief. I retire in a few years and will move to
Florida. Bye bye suckers! (I just hope the house market doesn’t crash before that. If I can’t sell my house, Democrats will put me in their debtors prison).

Anonymous wrote:

Only govt department/agency not to have an Inspector General, and it takes up more than half of the county budget!

What would need to happen to create an Inspector General for MCPS? Majority of the council would need to approve it? How could a council member be opposed to an Inspector General?

I plan to call my council members’ offices tomorrow about this.

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't MCPS already get like 60% of all tax revenue? Time and time again it has been shown that dumping more money into schools doesn't provide better outcomes. Japanese, Chinese Singaporean, and Swedish students run laps around American students, and they spend far less mony per pupil. Baltimore spends near the most money per pupil and they have like 3% math proficiency rate in many schools.Taxing people out of their homes and using schools and education as an excuse is a terrible idea. Teach better and force parents to parent better. No amount of money can make people be better parents. There are just a lot of lowlifes in MoCo that drag down the whole system, so I don't know why people think money will fix it.