If the City of Memphis and Shelby County are looking for reasons for our financial crisis, they need to start with our two school systems. Our County school system is pretty good and their cost per student is lower than the Memphis City School system. Of course Mayor Herneton wants to combine the two systems which would require the County School System to spend more per student to lower their achievement level to the City system as state law requires that when you combine two system, you must bring the lower cost system up to the higher cost system. Stupid yes, but we are talking politicians here, not rocket scientists. The City School System and Mayor Herenton continue to block a separate school district for the better performing county school system.

However the most egregious problem and error is the ADA (Average Daily Attendance) split law between the City and the County. The law states that when the County builds a school in the County, they must give the City of Memphis School System the cost of the new school multiplied by the ADA split. The law, however, has a provision that allows the county to build the school with taxes collected outside the City of Memphis to avoid this disastrous payment to the Memphis City Schools (MCS). One school (Arlington High School) was built by this provision in the law and county taxpayers are paying 4 cents per year in property taxes for this school over and above their normal county property tax. Since, then the County Commission has refused to build further schools using this method in the law. The results are shown below. $539 million dollars in extra cost plus another $50 million starting this year. No wonder Mayor Wharton is looking to tax you more.

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT BUDGET SCHOOL FUNDING
Funding bases on ADA (Average Daily Attendance)
FY	City	County	Total
1999	$57,300,000.00	$27,150,000.00	$84,450,000.00
2000	$95,296,146.00	$48,838,828.00	$144,134,974.00
2001	$57,300,000.00	$31,800,000.00	$89,100,000.00
2002	$57,300,000.00	$27,300,000.00	$84,600,000.00
2003	$57,300,000.00	$18,800,000.00	$76,100,000.00
2004	$57,300,000.00	$51,975,000.00	$109,275,000.00
2005	$57,300,000.00	$20,000,000.00	$77,300,000.00
2006	$57,300,000.00	$20,000,000.00	$77,300,000.00
2007	$43,000,000.00	$17,000,000.00	$60,000,000.00
Totals	$539,396,146.00	$262,863,828.00	$802,259,974.00
TOTAL PAID TO CITY OF MEMPHIS OVER AND ABOVE COST OF COUNTY SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION COSTS		$539,395,935.00
Funding based on Joint Agreement of 50/50 split of $100 million
FY	City	County	Total
2006	$0.00	$8,000,000.00	$8,000,000.00
2007	$0.00	$30,000,000.00	$30,000,000.00
Note: Final $12 million to County Schools paid in FY 2008. City School payment of $50 million to begin in FY2008

 

The reason for this financial crisis lies at the feet of the politicians and their refusal to make reasonable decisions that taxpayers have to make every day. It is time that taxpayers take back control of their government from the politicians by cutting off the tax faucet.