Letters McManus on property tax EDITORS: For the past five years the salary schedule for the teachers of the Macon Community Unit No. 5 School District has failed to keep up with the rate of inflation. Each year the school board claims that they can't afford the raises that they admit we deserve. Each year we try, in vain, to prove that they can. In the August Chicago column "Illinois Property Tax Revolution?" Ed Manus says, "There is unquestionably a great deal of fat in governmental programs — particularily in schools . . . ." If significant deposits of "fat" exist in the Macon Schools we would certainly like to know where, so we can bargain for the money. Likewise in the other districts with which I am familiar — Blue Mound, Argenta, Niantic, Warrensburg and Maroa — I challenge you to find so much as 1 per cent of the budget that is not either 1) tied to some mandated program directly or 2) contributing to the achievement of some valid educational objective. It may appear that schools aren't very efficient, and they may not be. But just try to find the wasted money.
Mike Williams, Chairperson 32/November 1978/Illinois Issues
|