[Goldwingnut]

In case you don't notice, the school taxes have a proposed 13% increase, some of this is coming from the state but most of it is local. This is absolutely outrageous, more so than event he proposed 24% property tax increase. Over 2000 new homes were added to Sumter county last year and the vast majority of them (the homes in The Villages) added a grand total of ZERO students to the school district.

Looking at my tax bill, I paid just over $1200 in state and local school taxes. I have no problem with this, it's like this almost everywhere, everyone pays school taxes even if they have no children in school.

My beef is that 2000 new homes in TV each paying $1200 or more is $2,400,000 more to their budget with very little proportional student population increase county. Adding insult to injury this 13% increase is about a $70 (or more) increase for every home in TV in Sumter County or about $2,500,000 increase. This is more than a $4,900,000 increase in the school budget from just The Villages, there is additional increases from the rest of the homes in the County.

According to the school district website there are approximately 8,200 students in the Sumpter County School District, this equates to an increase of nearly $600 per student. Or if we look at the total school budget of nearly $113,000,000, that is over $13,750 per student, per year.

When I left Memphis Tennessee 12 years ago the Memphis city school system spent an average of $6,200/student annually, and Shelby County school system (the rest of the schools in the county not within the city limits of Memphis) were spending $5,200/student. Even adjusting for inflation I find it difficult to accept the costs here in Sumter County are so high, especially when one considers the poor conditions of the non-charter schools in the county.

I am absolutely for the children getting a first rate educations and for funding that education. But the numbers here just don't work.

I'm not sure who is being cheated more, us the taxpayers or the students of Sumter County.