I’m normally a big fan of Nick Martin’s blog on the Free Press site, but his latest post kinda misses the boat.
He wonders why school trustees are vilified for raising property taxes, while City Councillors aren’t criticized for increasing the cost of recreation programs?
The answer is obvious.
One is a mandatory tax, that’s paid by everyone regardless of whether they use the education system. If you don’t think the system is working well, you have no refund option. And depending on where you live, you might pay 20% to 30% more for the same service as someone in another part of town.
The other is an optional user fee, only paid by the people who take that recreation program. If the instructor is bad or the facilities are poor, you can request a refund or choose not to enroll in the next session. And similar programs cost the same amount of money, regardless of where you live.
But the question here is completely off in the first place. The valid comparision would be if the City increased property taxes to help subsidize recreation programs. And that hasn’t happened in at least 12 years.
************
On a semi-related note, why is it that I can pull an RSS feed for just about anything on the Freep website, except the blogs? They made this change without warning several months back. It’s annoying and doesn’t make any sense. Half the newsroom is on Twitter now, but the flagship online property doesn’t even offer basic web functionality.
White and Walsh, I know you guys pop by here on occassion. What gives?
Filed under: winnipeg blog | Tagged: school property taxes, Winnipeg Free Press
While your point has some merit (and I have to admit here that I have not read Martin’s comments) I can’t help but notice it’s similarity to the cranks who continually complain about having to pay school taxes when their kids are already out of school.
Both arguments are reductionist, refusing to see the complex integrated society that we live in.
Huge amounts have been studie and written about, to prove that effective education provides significant help to reduce crime rates, power the economy among other things. While we can argue about whether the current democratically elected school boards are providing effective education, it can’t be argued that effective education is not free, or even cheap.
On the other side of the coin city councillors, who consistently complain about crime (something that is out of their jurisdiction), regularly raise recreation fee often putting them far out of reach of low income families, whose kids most need them. Again the literature is clear that these programs provide real results in limiting kids’ criminal activity and improving their future economic outcomes (and thus all of our economic prospects)
My point is not that we should go totally socialist and have huge taxes for education, free recreation for all and fairies dancing in the street. My point is that the difference between the taxes and the fees is not as clear as you would have us believe.
The money we give to government, whether it is fees or taxes, is about how we choose to shape our society and comparing the criticism of councillors to school trustee’s on that basis is valid.
I know it’s been a rough couple of weeks for you PF, and that big shit eating grin is well deserved if you have one!
But – obvious? Your comparison between school taxes and recreational programs is IMHO a little on the apples and oranges side.
Break it down into matching components school taxes and educational programing vs recreational programs and recreational infrastructure.
Even if you don’t have children the school division can be a resource center and/or offer programs to adults (which too involves user fees) and optional participation.
And that my Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse moi for today!
PS, Welcome back to the virtual ‘take no prisoners’ world of blog ‘kid’ – good on you!
@C. Crolly – I agree that our society derives great benefits form having a strong education system, and I do think it should be funded by everyone, regardless of age or parental status. However, property tax is a terrible method for that funding.
And you may have a fair point about how the City has allowed recreation fees to creep up. Although I should point out the city does fund organizations like the Boys & Girls Club, Art City, and the Graffiti Gallery, which provide free recreation opportunities for young people. It also funds a subsidy program for low income kids who are enrolled in community centre activities, and recently made a significant contribution to an inner-city soccer league. All of these efforts are supported through property taxes.
However, I still contend there’s a big difference between the taxes we are required to pay and the fees we choose to pay.
@RU – You’re right, it is apples and oranges. That was my central complaint about Nick’s post.
P.S. Thanks. It’s good to be back, and to not have to work a catch phrase into every post.
@PF: Raising user fees on government services and then claiming not to be raising taxes is clearly bunk. This is just taxation in another name. And, just as research shows that funding Education is good for reducing crime, alieviating poverty, etc, we need to consider the full cost and benefit of recreation programs.
These programs do not reside in silos! Yet, our public managers and politicians are rewarded as if their decisions do not have broader effects and costs. For instance: underfunding of Education is rewarded. Then, schools seek to trim budgets by cutting gym and bringing in junk food companies who pay them a subsidy. The school officials get rewarded for their ingenuity! But, apparently, obesity and diabetes cost our government, society, and economy and are also bad for the people involved.
We need to track and reward managers and politicians using a different rubric.
@ Don St.: Right you are, but much of the trouble — and explanation — is, they’re diff. levels of gov’t. The school board doesn’t have to pay the costs of the diabetes, the prov’l & fed. health & welfare systems do (even tho there’s only one taxpayer). Tho’ you should certainly make the case to the city that they’re better off subsidizing rec. than combating youth & young adult crime, at least on the police end; tho’ the court costs are prov. & fed. no?
@Cheeky: The case I’m making is this: while different levels of government have different areas of responsibility, no level of government, no department, no office is an island. They are interrelated. So, if the city finds a way of saving $10,000,000 that results in the province having to spend $100,000,000, we should not reward the city officials.
This silo mentality is doing incredible harm. We need to reward city politicians if they raise taxes by $10,000,000 in order to prevent an expense at another level of $100,000,000. But, as it stands, we reward the wrong thing. We act as if each office, department, and level of government is an island.
[...] The above thinking is pure silo mentality. When we reward managers, leaders, and politicians for decisions that fail to consider the wider community, then decisions will fail to consider the wider community – often, with bad consequences. [...]
@Don St. – Somehow this conversation got off on a tangent…but then that’s nothing new for this blog.
The point of my post was to say that it’s obvious why people make noise about rising property taxes (they have no control) versus rising recreation fees (they have a lot of control). So comparing the public reaction to the two is an apples and oranges situation.
I do think there’s a significant difference between taxes and user fees, but you’re correct that it’s a bit disingenuous for the City to thump its chest and boast about a tax freeze when every other city fee has gone up.
You also raise a great point about the silo mentality, but unfortunately I don’t see that changing anytime soon. There’s no meaningful financial incentive in place for a lower level of government to save a higher level some money, and there’s no meaningful political incentive for a higher level to let a lower level take the credit.
I also think there’s some concern about scope creep. While every level of government should be mindful of the greater ramifications of its decisions, they all have specific areas of responsibility. If those parameters (or, silos if you prefer) break down completely, then I fear we’d end up with a giant bureaucratic mess at all levels, from the school board to the federal government.
If we could find a way to get the politics out of politics, and get everyone to work in a cooperative fashion, then I’m sure someone could design a system where effective management and quality planning are rewarded. However: a) that just ain’t going to happen; and b) we (the bloggerati) would certainly have a lot less fun under those circumstances.
PF has got it right with this one. Being forced to pay for other kids to go to school at the theat of loosing your house (try not paying the school tax and see what happens) is not the way a polite society should behave.
@PF: Tangent lines can be found by the process of differentiation, which was developped by Isaac Newton, carrying on the work of French lawyer and part-time mathematician, Pierre de Fermat….oh, tangents…
Anyway, silo mentality needs to change, even if that change is difficult. We need to, as a public, insist on rewarding managers for decisions that are in the best interest of the community and not their individual offices. That means that different groups from different offices need to start working collaboratively on projects and be rewarded for that big-picture kind of thinking. Not easy, but necessary.
@Freedom Manitoba: A Polite society is interesting concept. Same with the uniquely Canadian Just society. But, then we run into the problem of agreeing on what is justice and what is politeness – something which is cultural and not universal. I prefer instead to leave aside much of the ideological and focus on the practical harm-reduction, rights-optimization model.
@ DonSt.
The “silo mentality” socialists & pseudo- socialists decry is a direct out growth of the unionized civil service where people do “only what is in their job description”. Politicians spend most of their time fighting with it.
If you want co-operation then the unions have to ease off and let creative solutions be developed. For example, many of the branch libraries that have closed could have been integrated into existing school libraries if not for the union issues. This could extend school building hours and let kids play sports in the gyms along with provide meeting space for community groups.
The union got it’s panties in a knot every time it’s been suggested.
The real “silos” are called union locals.
@donaldstreet
//But, then we run into the problem of agreeing on what is justice and what is politeness //
True, that’s why it is best left for individuals to decide for themselves on what to fund and how to fund it, then doesn’t need to be a consensus. Threating people with violence to force them to fund your projects doesn’t seem very just or polite to me.
You’re right, PF, and it’s something we’re working on. When we switched content management systems we lost that functionality and we have to build it back in.