Comments to "School Tax" discussion on "Topix"

I’ll be upfront and let you all know I have thought very hard before weighing in on this subject because if you didn’t know my wife is a teacher at the middle school here in Columbia.

I would have to say that from my personal experience I could never repay some of the teachers in my life for what they have given me. This includes teachers from college, high school, and grade school. Teachers frame your children for the future. I have met many of the teachers in the Columbia school system and all that I have met care deeply for the children walking through the doors every day of every school year. I am not sure why you would want to reward them any less than you can.

It appears from the information posted on “Topix” there are seven administrators whose average salary is $103,701. Is this too much for a district of over 100 teachers at three different schools? It seems fairly on target with surrounding Missouri districts. It would seem logical to me that the seven administrators are the principal and vice-principal of each of Columbia’s three schools and the superintendent, I am not sure if this is true but like I said it seems logical to me.

If you think about the wages for administrators in terms of comparison to the private sector it really does not seem wrong. Say I owned a chain of distribution sites. I have three sites with about thirty employees each and I paid my manager and assistant manager at each branch around $100K would anyone complain? Not if they were successful. Then if I paid myself the CEO in the neighborhood of $100K no one would have anything to complain about.

I would also hope any of you value your child’s education more than what you may value results in any private industry example.

I am not sure what caused this debate other than your tax bills coming in the mail last week. Which everyone received last year and the year before, right? If this is your first year in Columbia in your new house then you should have known what your tax bill would be this year before you bought your house. These tax costs should be no surprise to anyone.

Getting your bill should not be the time when your alarm goes off; it should have gone off long ago. Posting on a site such as “Topix” and complaining behind a generic username does nothing in the grand scheme of things. All the negative comments there could realistically be coming from the same three or four people.

Call your alderman and school board members for answers, come to meetings when they have them and ask questions. Change comes with involvement and realistically you cannot hope that the school board and aldermen of Columbia take any action based on the opinions of anonymous posts on a website that churns more negative than positive about all of the people that represent you.

As always feel free to email me at levi.ottwell@gmail.com