That was the title of an editorial appearing this morning in the Journal Sentinel. It went on with a header that read: "Germantown officials should drop the effort to secede from the Milwaukee Area Technical College. The savings aren't worth the cost."
I was quite interested to see what logic had led the editorial group to reach this conclusion. Even though the petition cannot be about money, they admit that this would probably save the Germantown taxpayer with a home valued at $300,000 about $129 per year, or a little more if the change requested led to a slight decrease in the tax rate for the new district, MPTC.
They opined that this was simply not worth the cost...not to those of us in Germantown necessarily, but to the seven county metropolitan area. It would "deprive" MATC of some $5.5 million in revenue. They talk about this being harmful to the students of MATC including those from Germantown. If there are 100 students from our area attending MATC, the cost to the Germantown School District taxpayer has to be in the range of $55,000 per student per year. If there are 200, then we drop all the way down to an average of $27,500 per student per year. That is an over-simplification but it helps put all this into perspective.
They discuss what they see as the poor timing of this and, in essence, lay blame for whatever happens to the seven county area economic development efforts at our feet if the petition is approved. Wow! If only we'd known what power we had before this, we could've really gone for something big!
We now become an integral part of the Milwaukee metropolitan region. Funny how that is always the case when they seek our money, but is never the case when they're formulating some master plan.
The editorial does finally admit that MATC's taxes are too high, and they say that officials there need to place "some restraint" on expenditures. That message doesn't seem to get through, however, to an appointed (unelected) board that rolls over every time MATC President Darnell Cole says "roll over".
Now, back to that $129 that we're not supposed to be concerned about. For the Germantown School District, that could easily have been converted to a new elementary school. That would've taken some $84 of the tax relief had this been available when we all voted on that issue...before prices climbed. It could've likely funded our village road repair coffers very nicely on the balance of $45 per $300,000 of home value.
$129 isn't 'chump change' as so many would try to shame us into believing.
And why is it our responsibility to pump more and more money into MATC so that it can try, unsuccessfully, to repair some of the MPS damage? Why is it our responsibility to sit out here in 'the boonies' (from the perspective of the decision-makers in Milwaukee) and continually cough up more money for their needs. When do they reciprocate?
