Practically Speaking

Just 52 cents a day. Only $191 increase in school property tax per year.

It’s in all the district’s literature and on their website. It was in the Waukesha Freeman and Brookfield NOW. Lisabeth Passalis-Bain quotes the district in her article. “According to an Elmbrook School District-issued brochure, ‘the projected increase in the 2007 tax bill of an average ($335,000) home is $164 for the first question and/or $27 for the second question. (That impact) is projected to hold constant for the first 10 years and decline for the last 10 years of the repayment schedule.’ ”

I even misspoke about that .52 cents a day in my blog: My 2 cents on 52 cents a day

I compared their 52 cents of spare change argument to how the Christian Children’s Fund used to make their appeals. Trouble is, the Children’s Fund worked out to the real cost of the referendum for the average household, not the defeased amount! (The actual daily cost of $350/year is 96 cents/day.)

The real cost on the calculator of $308.20 a year works out to be $0.84 a day, or $378.55 a year--or $1.04 a day. depending on how you classify our Brookfield El. and Dixon debt.

Barbara Shore wrote the following very easy to understand explanation of defeasance and another thing to consider when deciding how you will vote on April 3: The Doyle tax increases.

"Twilight Zone"

Did you know? The Elmbrook School District wants the “average” homeowner, whose house is valued at $335,000, to pay either $378 or $191 extra school property tax every year.

The actual figure you use depends on whether you are giving a pass to the “prefunding” the Board included in the 2007 budget. In other words, we are already paying for the assumption that the referendum will pass by paying off prior debt earlier than scheduled.

On top of this, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article recently reported that under Doyle’s proposed state budget, the property tax rate statewide would increase 3.4%.

So in addition to the referendum increase of $191 or $378 or however you want to spin it, the “average” Brookfield homeowner would see another tax hike due to State budget issues, plus the $70 for the 4K, plus the usual 5% increase that EBSD adds on to their budget from year to year for operating expenses.

That’s without any increase from the city, county or WCTC. For all we know, the total cost of all the spending and budget issues could whack the “average” tax bill upward by $500 or more. This whole scenario is taking on other worldly proportions, reminiscent of ..."The Twilight Zone"

(Emphasis added)

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