Schools - Crist still at odds over property taxes

Gov. Charlie Crist met for about 45 minutes today with the president of the Florida Education Association to discuss the property tax plan on the Jan. 29 ballot. Andy Ford has been trying to get Crist to commit to replacing up to $3-billion in lost property tax revenue to schools over five years.

"It was a good conversation but we continue to disagree," FEA spokesman Mark Pudlow told the Buzz. (Ford was unavailable Thursday afternoon.) "We clearly let them know we aren't changing our position on opposing the property tax initiative."

As such, the union plans to send its 137,000 members a letter outlining why the tax cut plan is a bad idea.

Crist has said he'll recommend more school funding in his budget proposal, but the bottom line is ultimately decided by the Legislature.

Comments

[Chris]

The tax cut goes to everyone who already is homesteaded yet the people who need relief get very little. I pay $5000 and my neighbor in an identical house pays $1500. If this lamo tax cut passes, he'll pay $1200 and I'll still be paying $4700. Great inequality fix!

Rollback taxes and spending to 2002 levels, and expand SOH to ALL property both commercial and residential.

Problem Solved!

What was the blog that was pulled re: Erin Isaac about?

Yeah, I won't say who I am, but can I call Steve Bosquet and have him pull a blog down next time it mentions my name and I don't like it? What a joke.

During the debate, Erin was seated next to the army officers who apparently is openly gay.
Another non-story, unless he has AIDS and was all over her ...

The thought of anyone "all over" Erin... yuck

Is Steve still vying for a job with Erin?

The buzz is full of "non-stories." Why did this one derserve special treatment?

Erin is such a joke. Her comment this afternoon about Geroge LeMieux possibly leaving, "Everyone leaves at some point," provides more evidence of the inexperience and lack of communications leadership she provides. I wonder, do reporters like working with her?

[terminator]

Great job by Charlie on the public education front. Trust us, yeah right guys.
First he offers up a lame *ss tax cut bill that doesn't amount to a hill of beans and will cut education funding further so that way teachers and school support personnel ( administrators, counselors, custodians, clerical, security, cafeteria workers, maintenance, etc. etc) won't receive raises and will have to pay more health insurance costs out of their pocket.
Yeah, Florida public education is really going to rise to "world class" standards with that kind of commitment.
Let's face it, Charlie could care less about K-12, knows nothing about K-12, has no formulated education policy and is totally out to lunch when it comes to the nuances of how to build a better education system.
Jeb may have been tyrannical but at least he realized the intrinsic value of improving public schools.
Crist has about as much policy knowledge as the scarecrow on the Wizard of OZ.
Keep up the good work Charlie. Let's just hope Florida survives the next three years under your "leadership".

Hey, termie, How did Marco (your special buddy not that there is anything wrong with that) vote for the plan? I think he voted for the plan.

The problem with Charlie trying to give his word that the legislature will hold schools harmless is that Marco can't keep his word for a whole week so how can he be trusted to stay on board for a whole year?

[terminator]

9:47
Well I suppose you raise some valid points.
I perceive Marco's defacto "endorsement" of the Crist/Pruitt/Geller tax cut plan as a manifestation of total frustration with the Governor/legislature's inability to accomplish anything substantive as it pertains to (property tax cuts, property insurance reductions).
Wasn't it Gelber who said "he didn't think the current legislature had the intellectual ability to have a rational discussion on these issues"?
I hope Marco refuses any entreaties from Crist or Pruitt regarding additional tax cut proposals to be introduced during this year's coming legislative session.
Lacasa will carry his water through the tax and budget reform commission.
And if not we can put a competing constitutional amendment on the ballot to muddy the waters further.
It's kind of like crap. You throw it against the wall and hope something sticks.
Burn baby burn.

The schools don't need more money. What they need is A LOT FEWER ADMINISTRATORS leeching off the taxpayer. Fire 2/3 of the administrators and divvy up the money amongst the teachers (raises) and increase the amounts spent on books and other teaching aids.

Oh, and support the teachers when they discipline Little Precious. His antics may be precious to you and the Grandparents. In school, they are just disruptive and prevent teaching and learning.

8:41 a.m.,

I think they should just fire all of the guidance counselors, school librarians, bus drivers, food service workers, school secretaries, security guards, reading coaches, custodians, and teacher's aides and let the classroom teachers do all of that work like they did back in the early 1900s. We could pay them more, and as professionals, I know that they would do really good work.

Besides, if we make those fat students walk to schools and we don't feed them anything for breakfast or lunch, maybe they won't be so fat anymore.

By the way, this is sarcasm, but I only wish that your stupid comments were also meant to be absurd instead of just being that way.

If you want to be serious, tell me (I already know) how many administrators that their are currently and how many that there SHOULD be in your revamped system. Tell me how much money you will save and what the increase for teachers would be on average. Then, I will get serious and drop some real knowledge on your . . . head.

[Nicolas A]

UNIONIZED TEACHERS DESRERVED TO BE FIRED!!!

Nicolas Adjuder
nic@thepoorarenottrying.net
ThePoorAreNotTrying.net
Author of The Poor Are Not Trying