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A friend recently asked me “… to break down the school budget down to the public, and the redistricting costs.” She read my pamphlet on how the Torrington Tax Assessor unnecessarily complicates our taxes. The reason I can’t break down the school budget is because the money that goes into the schools comes from all over the place, and it is different every year. You probably think all the property tax money, or some percentage of it goes to local schools, and I wish it were so. In fact I would fight to make it so. But right now the only way we can talk about the school budget is one sided. We only know how much the schools cost, and that has very little to do with how much property taxes bring into Torrington. Torrington government would have us believe a portion of property taxes goes into the schools. But the funds don’t add up. What portion of property taxes goes to the schools? Is it the same portion every year? Government makes things unnecessarily complicated. You believe property taxes go to education. No. All taxes go to a general fund and from that fund the government, in its infinite wisdom, will pay for education. The government makes it clear that they do NOT want you to know how much of your taxes goes to education, how much to law enforcement, how much to public works, etc. They hide the information, like they hide your property taxes. They say your property tax is 45.75 mills. Well sure, but no one except a tax assessor knows that 45.75 mills means 3.2025% is your tax. You pay 3.2% of your property value in taxes, and they don’t want you to know that. The important thing is the percentage of your property value that is paid in taxes, not the mill rate. So if you want to know how much of your property tax goes to the Torrington education budget I could find that out, but I would have to find the education budget and the income from taxes and multiply it out. Which is stupid. They should tell us. I guess you and I are the only people who are interested, I told her. My friend answered: “No we’re not-I’ve been working with a set of parents for over six-months, the education budget is on Districts website-I can forward that to you, my question is would you look at it and give me your opinion- It would stay confidential unless you wanted to share your findings, and you would get total credit for it. I’m really good with laws, but not so much with the budgets..I agree we need to know..” Oh, I would LOVE to do that. The only thing that bothers me is that no one cares. We should be having this conversation on Two Torringtons, not in private messages.
“Yes yes you have my full permission..and thank you for your time and knowledge”
Hold my beer….
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