LGC 2.5 School selection and regionalization act (passed)

[Never Made it to Graceland]

School selection and regionalization act

Be it enacted, by the Council of Lincoln assembled

1. Starting in the 2021-22 school year, there shall be no linkage or relation between property taxes, or any other kind of local taxes; and funding for schools and school districts in the Lincoln region.

2. Funding for schools in the Lincoln region shall be pooled at the regional or state level, and distributed according to such a formula that tries to reduce differences in the quality of education between school districts in the region

3. As well as attending the school in a district corresponding to their place of residence, parents and legal guardians may also choose to send their kids to any schools in the school district corresponding to their workplace.

4. This bill shall become enacted immediately after passage

[Former President tack50]

Well, this bill is pretty much a single issue bill, intended to kill off the very harmful link between property taxes and other local taxes; and school funding, by pooling all education funding at the regional or state level and explicitly specifying that property tax cannot be used to fund schools.

Point 3 also gives a very small amount of flexibility to parents, so that they can send their kids to schools near their workplace instead of at their school district, just in case the school district is bad in some way.

[AGA]

Wouldn't this result in a free rider problem such that towns lower their property taxes to send less money elsewhere?

[Former President tack50]

Wouldn't this result in a free rider problem such that towns lower their property taxes to send less money elsewhere?

The point of this bill precisely is that there is no relation between property tax and school funding!

Although I am not opposed to an amendment to further reform the way property tax works if that is what is needed

[AGA]

Wouldn't this result in a free rider problem such that towns lower their property taxes to send less money elsewhere?

The point of this bill precisely is that there is no relation between property tax and school funding!

Although I am not opposed to an amendment to further reform the way property tax works if that is what is needed

In that case, wouldn't there be less funding for schools across the board?

[Former President tack50]

Wouldn't this result in a free rider problem such that towns lower their property taxes to send less money elsewhere?

The point of this bill precisely is that there is no relation between property tax and school funding!

Although I am not opposed to an amendment to further reform the way property tax works if that is what is needed

In that case, wouldn't there be less funding for schools across the board?

Not really I think. The ideal way for this bill to work would be that property tax gets pooled at the state or regional level (I think the Lincoln budget already has a section for property tax but Lincoln's finances are a complete disaster and should be redone from scratch at some point). Assuming we don't raise or lower taxes either way, the income from property tax would be the same.

So instead of rich schools in rich neighbourhoods and poor schools in poor neighbourhoods schools get roughly equal levels of funding.

I will say I am open to a better way of doing this, perhaps this bill is a bit too vague

[AGA]

Wouldn't this result in a free rider problem such that towns lower their property taxes to send less money elsewhere?

The point of this bill precisely is that there is no relation between property tax and school funding!

Although I am not opposed to an amendment to further reform the way property tax works if that is what is needed

In that case, wouldn't there be less funding for schools across the board?

Not really I think. The ideal way for this bill to work would be that property tax gets pooled at the state or regional level (I think the Lincoln budget already has a section for property tax but Lincoln's finances are a complete disaster and should be redone from scratch at some point). Assuming we don't raise or lower taxes either way, the income from property tax would be the same.

So instead of rich schools in rich neighbourhoods and poor schools in poor neighbourhoods schools get roughly equal levels of funding.

I will say I am open to a better way of doing this, perhaps this bill is a bit too vague

So there would be a free rider problem unless there is some provision that prevents localities from lowering their property taxes.

[Former President tack50]

Wouldn't this result in a free rider problem such that towns lower their property taxes to send less money elsewhere?

The point of this bill precisely is that there is no relation between property tax and school funding!

Although I am not opposed to an amendment to further reform the way property tax works if that is what is needed

In that case, wouldn't there be less funding for schools across the board?

Not really I think. The ideal way for this bill to work would be that property tax gets pooled at the state or regional level (I think the Lincoln budget already has a section for property tax but Lincoln's finances are a complete disaster and should be redone from scratch at some point). Assuming we don't raise or lower taxes either way, the income from property tax would be the same.

So instead of rich schools in rich neighbourhoods and poor schools in poor neighbourhoods schools get roughly equal levels of funding.

I will say I am open to a better way of doing this, perhaps this bill is a bit too vague

So there would be a free rider problem unless there is some provision that prevents localities from lowering their property taxes.

I mean fair enough, we could centralize property tax at the regional level to fix this issue, though I am not sure if it is an optimal solution (the housing market in NYC has little to do with the housing market in rural Maine for example)

[Never Made it to Graceland]

If there are no objections, we can hold a vote on this tomorrow.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

I am opening this for the final vote.

Court members will have 72 hours to vote.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Aye

[Former President tack50]

Aye

[RC (a la Frémont)]

Abstain

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Aye

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Bill passes.

3 Yes
1 Abstain
1 Not voting