Does a Levy Really Affect Your Property Values?

It should come as no surprise that supporters of the upcoming levy on November 8th are already repeating the oft-stated mantra that if the levy fails, the value of your home (or business) will decline.  For those that pay attention to levy campaigns, this line is trotted out pretty much every time.

And let's face it; people who are voting for a tax increase need to justify the extra money. While we're all supportive of the kids, it's still a tax increase. So if we're going to justify voting for it, being able to do so by saying "the value of my house will go up" makes it easier to stomach.

Of course, the pro-levy side doesn't actually say that the value of your house will go up. Instead they say you need to vote for the levy to "protect your property values" and similar statements. It's people's desire to see the positive that makes them translate that into "your property value will go up."

I think it's time we put this to bed once and for all.

Without question, we have experienced the worst meltdown in housing in a very long time.  Certainly worse than the 1980s (which was caused by sky-high interest rates, and remember that today the rates are at all-time lows), and statistically worse than the Great Depression as well.

Yes, through all that, apparently if you live in Hilliard your house is now worth only 4.2% less than it was in 2005, which was arguably the height of the market.

Yet, apparently, if the levy fails, the value of your house will go down.

Really?

By how much?

I mean, if 4.2% is the drop for the worst housing crisis in living memory, how bad could a drop from a failed levy actually be?

And that's before we consider that passing the levy means higher real estate taxes, which tends to give people more cause for concern when purchasing a property than a lot of people realize.  (If it didn't, everyone would buy houses in Bexley, Upper Arlington and Dublin, and districts like Hilliard, Olentangy and Westerville wouldn't even get people looking...)

So let's face facts: voting down a levy has no real impact on your property value.  Nor does voting up a levy.

What matters is how good the education is that the children receive.

And anyone that thinks that a few cuts to non-core educational activities is somehow going to cause the teachers of the district to not continue to perform such a wonderful job every day in the classroom, well, that's an insult to those very same hard-working teachers.

I have full confidence in the teachers and other staff in the Hilliard City School District that no matter what happens on November 8th, they will continue to work hard and provide our children with the education they need and deserve.

After all, it's for the kids.

Right?

An Observation

Today, the following email was sent by the principal of Memorial Middle School to the parents of its students:

This school year the academic experiences your child has been offered have felt different than in years past.  With reductions across the district we are doing business differently.  On a district level, it saddens me that we have begun the school year with 40 fewer teaching and staff positions throughout the district due to budget cuts.  In our school alone, we have felt these losses in several ways.  The reallocation of staff has caused an increase in class size, especially in many of our advanced classes. Several classes in both the 7th and 8th grade have 30 more students.  This seriously hinders our efforts to provide more individualization and small group classroom instruction.  It also has seriously impacted our ability to provide needed interventions for students who may be struggling or achieving at higher academic levels.  The movement of technology staff and the loss of our media center aide have stretched our existing staff as we attempt to meet the 21st century learning skills of our students.  The inability to staff our In School Suspension room has limited our range of disciplinary consequences and given us fewer options to intervene with behavior issues.  Overall, we have fewer choices to work individually with students in many special situations.

First of all, let's address the fundamental issue here before we get into the observation.

The latest published five year forecast that I'm able to locate (which, interestingly isn't on the district website...) shows that the FY2012 budget expenditures will be greater than the FY2011 expenditures.

So while the principal is complaining about budget cuts, maybe his ire should be directed at where the district decided to spend the money instead, since it's not only spending the same dollars as last year, but more...

But enough of that. Let's move on to the observation.  The principal references the loss of the media center aide.  (Media Center = Glorified Library).  Apparently we need to pay more taxes for what are essentially librarians.

Meanwhile, the Columbus Metropolitan Library just took us for a significant amount of new taxes last year so it could continue its non-core functions of job-placement help, and ... homework centers.

May I posit a theory?

If both of these government entities actually concentrated on their core activities -- no more "media centers" in the schools, and no more "homework centers" in the libraries -- then maybe both of them could make do without constant demands from the taxpayers -- correction, the property owners -- of the district for more money?

Update: Looks like all the schools are sending out similar propaganda.  In fact, aside from highlighting what they have lost, the verbiage in the emails going out is exactly the same.  The high schools are complaining about the loss of a Hall Monitor.  Oh no!


We should also mention that "40 teaching & staff positions throughout the district" equates to less than two positions per school, assuming they're all in the schools (they're not; some were administration cuts).  If you consider the number of staff members in each of these schools, especially at the middle and high school levels, you'll recognize that the loss of two members of staff is a rather small number.

ForHIlliardKids Meeting - Wednesday, Sept. 20th

We'll be holding an informational forum on Wednesday the 20th at 6:30pm at the Joint Safety Services building in Hilliard/Norwich Township.

We'll be discussing the reasons to oppose the November levy, and looking at the talking points that the district are not discussing in their propaganda.

Please join us.  Everyone welcome!