quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Chartering a school bus and driver…...

Cool. So you guys are paying for your part of the liability insurance, your part of the premature wear and tear on the equipment, etc?

Never heard of that before.

You do that with airline tickets? How much extra did you give for the tires when the plane landed? How much did you give the pilot on the way out? Dumb questions because everyone knows it's built into the price of the tickets.

Another dumb question: Do you audit the airlines to make sure they are taking all of that into account in the ticket prices? We didn't either when the school chartered a school bus with the money we raised or when we chartered real busses with the money we raised in subsequent years.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Chartering a school bus and driver…...

Cool. So you guys are paying for your part of the liability insurance, your part of the premature wear and tear on the equipment, etc?

Never heard of that before.

You do that with airline tickets? How much extra did you give for the tires when the plane landed? How much did you give the pilot on the way out? Dumb questions because everyone knows it's built into the price of the tickets.

Another dumb question: Do you audit the airlines to make sure they are taking all of that into account in the ticket prices? We didn't either when the school chartered a school bus with the money we raised or when we chartered real busses with the money we raised in subsequent years.

Those involved in the grift can’t see the grift.

If the airlines were operating publicly purchased airplanes, if the taxpayers paid for the pilots, if the taxpayers paid the retirement of the pilots, and if the taxpayers were on the hop for lawsuits incurred by the airlines, you damn right I would. Cutting airline subsidies is another great conversion that needs to happen.

But, airlines masquerade as private businesses while public schools are taxpayer funded.

Those not on the grift understand this and can see it. Your arguments really show that you have contempt for the taxpayers if they don’t shut up and go along. Although, I can’t see for the life of me what swimming has to do with school in the first place.

Apples and oranges (or bananas).

Airline costs are paid for by the people in the seats. School buses, not so much.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Those involved in the grift can’t see the grift.

You keep saying that and if you are referring to me, I suggest rereading my posts on the subject. I’ve agreed with you. I pointed out it may not be as bad as you think, so let’s just find out? How much does your district spend on busing students for extracurricular activities? Surely you know and are ranting from an informed position, but you don’t have a clue do you?

I say this because I posted that I payed out of my pocket for my kids’ education for 9 years each at about $8,000 a year each kid. Not including extracurriculars. If you had a clue what your district spends educating children, you’d realize the my kids’ education was compared to what the public schools spend per student. In my district the school budget divided by the number of students is about $25,000 per student. The taxpayers paying over 3x as much and the whole extracurricular busing issue is a rounding error in comparison.

Now the school my kids went to didn’t have all the fancy stuff the public schools have, but did that make a difference educationally? They are doing and did well at the best public high school in our county. For example, my son graduated high school with his associate degree (that’s 60+ college credits) and was accepted to Florida State. My daughter is on track to do the same. I’d ask what benefit did the taxpayers receive for their $17,000 per kid a year they spent in excess of what I spent on my kids? That number was from years ago.

The current budget is $555,000,000 for 17,000 students or $32,650 per student which is over 4 times as much. Let that sink in. $32,650 per student. For another comparison, in-state tuition, fees, room and board at any Florida public university is about $25,000.

For the sake of argument, let’s ignore that and look at the blade of grass savings from canceling busing for extracurricular activities. What are you going to do to clip that blade of grass? What do you suggest the rest of us do?

Honestly, I don't see the point of the argument here as it seems to me that the entire premise of this thread is flawed. NOBODY knows exactly what activity these 'school busses' in question providing transportation for. If they are providing transportation for student athletes involved in 'interscholastic sports' or other educational activities/trips, then most certainly that IS a school function, and the transportation for the team/students in those cases is/should be provided by the school district. In fact often times, school districts will usually require a parental note if the student athlete will be traveling either to, or from the event by any other means of transport other than the 'school bus' due to liability issues.

Also something to think about - Just because the school bus has lettering on the side indicating a particular school district, does NOT mean that the school owns or operates that particular bus. Our school district owns/operates ZERO busses and contracts with the bus company for student transportation services, and while most, but not necessarily all of the busses in use on any given day identify the school district, it's definitely not all 100% of the time. Sometimes busses break down/require service, and sometimes the busses have the name of the transportation company on the side, and sometimes it's an entirely different school district. Further, the bus company provides services to other organizations that charter those busses outside of the hours when they are providing transportation services to the school district's students. Who knows who is riding on those busses, especially now since the new busses have tinted windows.

YMMV as every state/school district gets to operate as they, and more importantly their voters, see fit. Regardless, if one has concerns re: taxpayer funded anything, especially at the local level, get involved and get informed. If something needs to be changed, be the force of change!

Why is it that the taxpayer is always the one that “just doesn’t understand” or needs to “reread” this or that? I don’t. Pretty sure that others don’t.

The fact you believe that this waste in particular is alright because it’s “blade of grass” or some such garbage shows that you pretty much don’t care what taxpayers feel. Which is the same attitude I’ll hazard a guess exists within each district.

It’s shows either you just don’t get it, or you’re complicit because you don’t get the difference between private business and taxpayer funded ones.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Why is it that the taxpayer is always the one that “just doesn’t understand” or needs to “reread” this or that? I don’t. Pretty sure that others don’t.

The fact you believe that this waste in particular is alright because it’s “blade of grass” or some such garbage shows that you pretty much don’t care what taxpayers feel. Which is the same attitude I’ll hazard a guess exists within each district.

It’s shows either you just don’t get it, or you’re complicit because you don’t get the difference between private business and taxpayer funded ones.

I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm not anti cop. So, with that in mind, let me ask you this question.

I believe that you are in law enforcement, correct?

If you are, do you have a take home vehicle?

If yes, as a taxpayer, I'm on the hook for the fuel you use and maintenance. When you are driving that vehicle anytime you aren't " on the clock ", and when you are. When you are driving from home to work, then the tax payers are footing the bill.

I'm not saying you do this, but I have seen police vehicles towing their boats, with the wifie and kiddos. I have seen police vehicles from other states, with their families in them. Now like I said, I'm not saying you do this, but I'm pretty sure that a lot are using their police vehicles for personal use and the maintenance costs are paid by the tax payers. Most likely the fuel also.

I work for a public school system. We own our buses. The state is supposed to pay 100% of the operation of school busses in the state of Kentucky. They do every county except for ours, the pay 25% of operation costs and replacement costs. We, therefore run our transportation department like a standard a lone business. So, anything outside of transport to and from school comes out of the schools budget, if it's a sports teams, it comes out of their budget.

And the funding for our schools, the tax money collected here in our county and sent to Frankfort. They Divy up to all the countries, and guess what? We only get 70+% of it back, our tax money gets sent to other school districts. So, to operate the schools rely on booster, fund raising and sponsorships so our kiddos can have the funding to pay the transportation department bill.

Our transportation department trys to keep a newer fleet, we buy Tomas buses, we get the extended warranty which is 5 years/100,000 mile warranty, which doesn't cost us anything to maintain the bus, except the monthly inspection ( that are required by law ) ( even if that bus is a sub bus and wasn't driven that mouth ) that our service department does.

We usually sell off our buses at around 7 to 10 years old, and after 5 years they become sub busses.

I'm just telling you how our district works, I can't answer for others.

So again, the Cross County team I'm with right now, they are paying for my time, the cost of fuel, mileage ( wear and tear) out of their programs budget.

Again to ask the question. Do you have a take home vehicle? If so do you ever drive it on your time? If so, then you are using taxpayer money for your own personal use. If not good for you. But I see lots of law enforcement with their wife and kid doing shopping, going out to eat, and all kinds of stuff. All on the taxpayer dime.

Also to others that aren't in law enforcement but have a company vehicle, do you use it on personal use/time? Who's paying for that? Your company? No, your companies customers, as the company is passing on that cost to their customers.

Like I said, I know how our district is run, I can't speak to others.

ARman

^^^^^^^
Don't you think that isn’t way too predictable? The old school yard “but Billy is doing this so….”

I get a take home vehicle because I agree that I will respond 24/7 directly to the scene of a crisis. As a taxpayer, the day that the 8 elected people that the taxpayers elect decide that we don’t get take home vehicles, we don’t get take home vehicles.

Big differences- I’m not running a side business out my vehicle. I’m not delivering for Amazon, working for lift, or some other kind of grift. Nor do I get paid extra. The taxpayers incur no additional liability because the taxpayers have elected people that decided that they want an on call response team that doesn’t have to drive a half hour without a code response.

Another big difference is that if the taxpayers decide to cut funding, they have 4-6 different people to vote in/out to affect change. They aren’t nameless/faceless individuals with no taxpayer input. Yeah, another big difference. And spare me “but the school board”. They are a rubber stamp at best.

Oh and the state association doesn’t doxx taxpayers who complain like the KEA does. Oh, and when we don’t get our way, we don’t walk off the job and drive our cruisers to Frankfort to protest. We drive our cars back and forth actually going to jobs. The day the taxpayers decide they don’t want it, we won’t. No state associated drama, no protests in Frankfort.

That’s the difference. I get it, I am fucking with your cash flow by complaining. You complaining does effect me a bit. Why in the flying monkey fuck would I want to drive a marked car off duty around without body armor on and a camera running? That is just dumb. Driving a giant bullseye around is dumb. Quite frankly, putting your kids in a marked car is dangerous at best.

By all means, complain. Because at the end of the day, the taxpayers aren’t out extra liability. The day that we start running Uber out of cars, you’ll have an equal complaint.

And lastly, one more time for the cheap seats, people with company cars aren’t PUBLICLY owned (just like the airlines/airplanes aren’t PUBLICLY owned). It has dick to to with the taxpayers. I don’t know if you guys keep bringing up airlines and company cars on purpose, or if you don’t understand the difference.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Our schools already have massive spending problems on top of the rest of their issues.

Sort of back to the original topic: this is the root of the issue. Counties, districts, whatever your area calls them… they spend a pile of money, indiscriminately. They spend because the can; because the taxpayers are funding it.

A county near me just spent a hundred million dollars on updating ONE school building. Yeah, you read that correctly — $100,000,000. Why? "Because the building was old and ugly. It looked like a prison," said one I chatted with.

Thing is, people got upset when I asked whether any of them could guarantee that the result of all that money spent would be smarter and better-prepared students. They got more upset when I asked how much better we could pay teachers and how many more school resource officers could be hired for a tick over $3.3 million a year (assuming a standard 30-year mortgage). I got chastised for “treating it like a stock investment.” Yeah, it’s an investment, and as one who’s putting up part of the money, I want to see a positive return.

Who’s on the grift? I’m thinking it’s the contractors, the attorneys, the building supply people, the technology people, …. Why? Because the money was easy to get — just raise the tax rates a little, get a grant or two, yadda yadda. The system gets to take the money without actually earning the money. They’ve got themselves a beautiful glass-front building now (which makes me want to ask a couple of very different questions, but they’re for a different rant).

They can spend money like there’s no tomorrow, but they can’t guarantee us they’re going to prepare our students better.

- - - -

Should the taxpayers pay for school trips? If it’s part of the curriculum, I’m not sure I have a problem with it. But in the process and in the big picture, the school system should be taking proper steps to control costs and to take proper care of the money they get.

But that’s just my opinion.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Another example to your point-

About 15 years ago now, the school board said that all of the high schools needed condemned. They were unsafe. Too unsafe to be remodeled. They wanted to spend 75 million dollars on a new consolidated school. And of course, it went excessively over budget. 15 years and a hundred million later, they still own all the properties, have remodeled all the properties, and lavishly keep acquiring property.

They run out of money? No problem, they by statute get to set their own tax rate. They promised that consolidation would cut jobs, but they have exploded in personnel despite student numbers not increasing by much.

The best part? Whenever you bring up to the admin and board about the lies to the taxpayers, the Superintendent just smugly says “That happened before me and I’m not responsible.” During COVID, they gave away money to everyone and anyone instead of giving it back to the taxpayers. They want the taxpayer money, but do not want to be held accountable.

That is what they think of us.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
They want the taxpayer money, but do not want to be held accountable.

That is what they think of us.

Yes, sir. Exactly.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
They want the taxpayer money, but do not want to be held accountable.

That is what they think of us.

Yes, sir. Exactly.

I hadn’t thought about it until this thread, but having a take home vehicle is costing me several thousand dollars per year in lost income. The taxpayers are actually saving money by us having a take home fleet.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
^^^^^^^


And lastly, one more time for the cheap seats, people with company cars aren’t PUBLICLY owned (just like the airlines/airplanes aren’t PUBLICLY owned). It has dick to to with the taxpayers. I don’t know if you guys keep bringing up airlines and company cars on purpose, or if you don’t understand the difference.

Because that business passes that cost to the customer then they right it off ( vehicle costs, depreciation, fuel costs off on THEIR TAXES, which you and I as tax payers eat it. So, my neighbor that works for the Porsche dealership is driving a Porsche GTS, $180,000.+ vehicle, after a month or so he'll turn it in, it can't be sold as a new car, so it will be sold as a used car, and the dealer, they'll write it off on their taxes.

Is that a grift?

So, I might be stupid because I'm just a grifting bus driver, you know someone that only works 50+ hours before sucking up tax payers money on field trips. I just want to get all learn't up.

ARman

quote:

Originally posted by mrvmax:
No.

Around me, the football play areas look like NFL stadiums, massive led billboards, chartered buses. Someone told me that booster clubs pay for it, I doubt it. I should only pay for schooling if I have kids there.

Football is big business in Texas. When you said around here, they have huge stadiums, I instant thought, must be Texas, and I was right.

Those huge stadiums and top quality athletic programs (in Texas) are most assuredly paid for by boosters, endowments, and perhaps ticket sales. These stadiums sell out and bring in tons of money every Friday night during football stadium. Whole town comes out. Let’s not forget concessions sales, another $20k to $50k in sales per game. Some places charge for parking, another $5-$20 per car.

It’s a self supporting system and I doubt they use much if any tax dollars for it.

A lot of rich Texas oil men or ranchers will sponsor teams too with huge yearly checks.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
having a take home vehicle is costing me several thousand dollars per year in lost income. The taxpayers are actually saving money by us having a take home fleet.

I don’t think I’m following you on that one. Clarify?

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Those huge stadiums and top quality athletic programs (in Texas) are most assuredly paid for by boosters, endowments, and perhaps ticket sales. These stadiums sell out and bring in tons of money every Friday night during football stadium. Whole town comes out. Let’s not forget concessions sales, another $20k to $50k in sales per game. Some places charge for parking, another $5-$20 per car.

False. The stadiums are paid for by the taxpayers as I previously posted. The school district may sell some naming rights and save single digit percent, but it doesn't pay for $70 to $120 million stadiums (6 of 10 most expensive stadiums are in the Houston Area). I live here and cannot think of a high school stadium paid back to the taxpayers by ticket sales.

The ticket sales go to the athletic department and that is how they have nice uniforms, ride in charter buses instead of school buses, have weight rooms that look like college football weight rooms, and coaches that make more than the superintendent. Good football programs are a cash cow, but the taxpayers don't benefit. Instead, all of the other athletic programs benefit especially the ones that can't put more than a few dozen butts in seats.

quote:

The school district may sell some naming rights and save single digit percent

We just built half of a new high school in our district of fewer than 1800 students K-12. Building was $50,000,000 when they told us they could build it for $35,000,000. Contract with the architect stated the budget at $30,000,000.

Athletic facilities were an additional $18,000,000 or so. Partial stadium, ball fields, etc.

New local company donated $2,000,000 for naming rights and has been lauded as an excellent community partner.

Same local company got a tax abatement (after construction had already started) which will cost the school district over $86,000,000 in lost tax revenue over the next 20 years.

^^^ That is a sweetheart of a deal. Give $2M and get a $4.3M per year tax abatement for 20 years.

Wonder how much under the table money it took to buy that deal?

Gee, if only we put this much effort and expense into stupid things like better and/or more teachers, tutors, advanced lab equipment, vocational education facilities, etc. Teach kids how to fish. But yea, a $70M stadium sounds useful too.

quote:

Originally posted by ARman:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
^^^^^^^


And lastly, one more time for the cheap seats, people with company cars aren’t PUBLICLY owned (just like the airlines/airplanes aren’t PUBLICLY owned). It has dick to to with the taxpayers. I don’t know if you guys keep bringing up airlines and company cars on purpose, or if you don’t understand the difference.

Because that business passes that cost to the customer then they right it off ( vehicle costs, depreciation, fuel costs off on THEIR TAXES, which you and I as tax payers eat it. So, my neighbor that works for the Porsche dealership is driving a Porsche GTS, $180,000.+ vehicle, after a month or so he'll turn it in, it can't be sold as a new car, so it will be sold as a used car, and the dealer, they'll write it off on their taxes.

Is that a grift?

So, I might be stupid because I'm just a grifting bus driver, you know someone that only works 50+ hours before sucking up tax payers money on field trips. I just want to get all learn't up.

ARman

You sum up the problem with Kentucky’s education system and education employees in pretty much one post. Not educating people and lust for spending taxpayer money. You work in the educational industrial complex and you can’t (or won’t) grasp basic civics.

The dude with the Porsche. I get that where you work indoctrinates people into Marxism and automatically it’s bad for one person to have that and he’s obviously “not paying his fair share”. But, his business made a choice using their money. And if it’s a bad choice, the company faces having to sell it, go out of business, etc. what the company doesn’t get to do is stick its hand deeper in the taxpayers pocket to cover reckless spending. The company certainly doesn’t get to increase the amount of tax money they get to loot from the taxpayers because they get to by statute.

The consumer also gets the choice to not buy Porsche man’s products if it’s too expensive because of reckless spending. They don’t have enforcers that come after me if I don’t buy their product. My drivers license or professional certificates won’t be suspended if I don’t buy their product.

The education system, at the hands of KEA, is failing Kentucky students. But, as long as everyone gets paid off it’s ok, right? Your neighbors following the tax code to get his money already paid to the government back by their own rules is the same theft that goes on in the school systems year after year? Riiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhhtttttt.