Anonymous wrote:What pg county doesn't need is a bunch of scattered charter schools like DC. Most of those school test scores are below average and parents move to one part of the city to try to get their kids into 3 or 4 good schools. Improve upon the existing schools in pg first by creating programs and implementing them in the local neighborhood school. Also focus on business revenue not just taxes based upon housing. That way of thinking needs to die. Pg school system has improved drastically over the last 15 years. They have a done a good job with little funds

Anonymous wrote:What pg county doesn't need is a bunch of scattered charter schools like DC. Most of those school test scores are below average and parents move to one part of the city to try to get their kids into 3 or 4 good schools. Improve upon the existing schools in pg first by creating programs and implementing them in the local neighborhood school. Also focus on business revenue not just taxes based upon housing. That way of thinking needs to die. Pg school system has improved drastically over the last 15 years. They have a done a good job with little funds

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sure, if this tax increase would mean my child had greater access to expanded specialty programs and universal Pre-K, I'd be all over it. But I'm with the PG residents who view this proposal with a healthy dose of skepticism. We are already the highest taxed municipality in the region, and what do we have to show for it?

I recommend that we stop using this fact. As I pointed out earlier, while we have the highest percentage tax, we still pay significantly less in actual total dollars than Montgomery County due to the fact that our housing prices are lower. We have 90% of the population that MoCo has, yet we only pay 48% of the real dollars in property taxes that they do. And not all of those dollars go to education. So we pay higher relative to the cost of our property, but lower than they do. So, either you need to accept that the lower property taxes mean that less money goes into improving our schools or you need to accept that you need to pay more into the system to get a better school system. You can't complain that we have higher percentage tax rates, but we put less money into the system and our schools are worse than Montgomery County. Either we put in more money to the school system or we accept that we have a weaker school system.

I for one, want to see a better school system. I'm willing to pay a few hundred dollars more a year to see improvement in our schools, which, in turn, will improve property values.

Well, duh.

But what happens if our property values actually increase as a result of the improvement in schools? Are they going to say, welp, we don't need that extra 15% anymore...let's lower taxes back down! Ha.

My neighbors over the DC line live in houses similar to mine, have low-performing schools similar to mine, pay much lower taxes, and their houses are worth 2-3 times what mine is worth. The shitty schools in DC do not stop people from paying $1 million for a rowhouse in, say Petworth or Bloomingdale. I am not opposed to having to pay higher taxes for our schools in concept -- I just want to know that all alternatives for lifting up our declining neighborhoods and schools are being explored, and that the money is being well-spent on measures that will actually improve the schools.
But they're not. They're placing the burden 100% on already over-taxed residents for scattered priorities with no real plan in place.

But there are actually many good options in DC that don't depend on address. There are around 50 different charter schools there. What used to be a cheap house that fed into a horrible school doesn't become that when you add in all the language immersion/charters/other options that parents have access to now. PG doesn't have any of that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sure, if this tax increase would mean my child had greater access to expanded specialty programs and universal Pre-K, I'd be all over it. But I'm with the PG residents who view this proposal with a healthy dose of skepticism. We are already the highest taxed municipality in the region, and what do we have to show for it?

I recommend that we stop using this fact. As I pointed out earlier, while we have the highest percentage tax, we still pay significantly less in actual total dollars than Montgomery County due to the fact that our housing prices are lower. We have 90% of the population that MoCo has, yet we only pay 48% of the real dollars in property taxes that they do. And not all of those dollars go to education. So we pay higher relative to the cost of our property, but lower than they do. So, either you need to accept that the lower property taxes mean that less money goes into improving our schools or you need to accept that you need to pay more into the system to get a better school system. You can't complain that we have higher percentage tax rates, but we put less money into the system and our schools are worse than Montgomery County. Either we put in more money to the school system or we accept that we have a weaker school system.

I for one, want to see a better school system. I'm willing to pay a few hundred dollars more a year to see improvement in our schools, which, in turn, will improve property values.

Anonymous wrote:
Sure, if this tax increase would mean my child had greater access to expanded specialty programs and universal Pre-K, I'd be all over it. But I'm with the PG residents who view this proposal with a healthy dose of skepticism. We are already the highest taxed municipality in the region, and what do we have to show for it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a great and necessary.

maxwell is proposing to expand access to many specialty programs: Montessori, language immersion, TAG; and also proposing increased funding for the most needed services like parent liasons. Increased funding for full day PreK

All this is going to cost money. As a county we need to pay more than we are paying if we ever expect to have a decent school system.

Montgomery County may not have to pay as high a tax rate, but their property values are so much higher that even a lower tax rate gives their county plenty of money.

Do you have a link or citation to a source that actually delineates these items or whatever Maxwell intends to do with this extra money? I haven't seen it and can't find anything.

Sure, if this tax increase would mean my child had greater access to expanded specialty programs and universal Pre-K, I'd be all over it. But I'm with the PG residents who view this proposal with a healthy dose of skepticism. We are already the highest taxed municipality in the region, and what do we have to show for it?

As property values steadily increase in my part of the county, and other close-in DC suburbs become astronomically expensive and price out the middle class, I don't know why Baker puts instead the full force of his office behind building upon that momentum and promoting development in areas with high potential for economic growth. The lack of a robust commercial tax base is what REALLY hurts the county. Instead, he is doing the opposite and promoting development away from transit, in declining neighborhoods outside the beltway. This tax increase will only make it less attractive to move here.

My views can pretty much be summed up here: http://pgurbanist.blogspot.com/2015/04/smarter-growth-will-expand-prince.html

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a great and necessary.

maxwell is proposing to expand access to many specialty programs: Montessori, language immersion, TAG; and also proposing increased funding for the most needed services like parent liasons. Increased funding for full day PreK

All this is going to cost money. As a county we need to pay more than we are paying if we ever expect to have a decent school system.

Montgomery County may not have to pay as high a tax rate, but their property values are so much higher that even a lower tax rate gives their county plenty of money.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a great and necessary.

maxwell is proposing to expand access to many specialty programs: Montessori, language immersion, TAG; and also proposing increased funding for the most needed services like parent liasons. Increased funding for full day PreK

All this is going to cost money. As a county we need to pay more than we are paying if we ever expect to have a decent school system.

Montgomery County may not have to pay as high a tax rate, but their property values are so much higher that even a lower tax rate gives their county plenty of money.

All of this...the base property tax value is lower, because the home values are lower (what attracts so many of us to PG in the first place) so higher taxes still mean lower revenue than MoCo (which has tons of million dollar plus homes, etc.)....
Prime example- http://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/where-we-live-tantallon-tony-but-affordable-living-in-prince-georges-county/2014/05/29/cc18e1c0-c591-11e3-bf7a-be01a9b69cf1_story.html

Agreed. For the record, in 2013, Montgomery County had approximately 1.02Mresidents and brought in an estimated $1.46B worth of property taxes. In comparison, Prince George's County had approximately 890K (approximately 90% of MoCo's population) and brought in $695.8M in property taxes (approximately 48% of MoCo's property taxes).

If you wonder why MoCo has a better school system, here is a large part of it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a great and necessary.

maxwell is proposing to expand access to many specialty programs: Montessori, language immersion, TAG; and also proposing increased funding for the most needed services like parent liasons. Increased funding for full day PreK

All this is going to cost money. As a county we need to pay more than we are paying if we ever expect to have a decent school system.

Montgomery County may not have to pay as high a tax rate, but their property values are so much higher that even a lower tax rate gives their county plenty of money.

All of this...the base property tax value is lower, because the home values are lower (what attracts so many of us to PG in the first place) so higher taxes still mean lower revenue than MoCo (which has tons of million dollar plus homes, etc.)....
Prime example- http://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/where-we-live-tantallon-tony-but-affordable-living-in-prince-georges-county/2014/05/29/cc18e1c0-c591-11e3-bf7a-be01a9b69cf1_story.html

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a great and necessary.

maxwell is proposing to expand access to many specialty programs: Montessori, language immersion, TAG; and also proposing increased funding for the most needed services like parent liasons. Increased funding for full day PreK

All this is going to cost money. As a county we need to pay more than we are paying if we ever expect to have a decent school system.

Montgomery County may not have to pay as high a tax rate, but their property values are so much higher that even a lower tax rate gives their county plenty of money.