Pat Powers posted his analysis regarding a ballot issue promoted by South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government. Excerpt:
So, an organization of public officials - where the dues are paid for by tax dollars - which engages in campaigns would effectively have any and all of those dues (both direct and indirect) shut off from those purposes.
They’re going to view that as bad. But there’s a part of this that will really make public officials howl in anger. Under the way I’m reading this proposal, those organizations technically couldn’t even lobby.
No public body public officer, person in the employ of the state or any of its political subdivisions, … may, directly or indirectly direct permit, receive require, or facilitate the use of tax revenues or any other public resources for … lobbying …. purposes, including payment of dues or membership fees of any kind to any person, league, or association which directly or indirectly engages in lobbying…..
Again, I removed some of the extensive language to make it more clear, but I don’t think the meaning changes at all. No taxpayer dollars can be used for lobbying, under penalty of a class one misdemeanor.
SDACC, SDACO, Municipal League, the State’s Attorney and Sheriff’s Associations, ASBSD, and any other organization that has #1) lobbyists, and #2) has dues directly paid for by their governmental body would technically have the spigot of public funds abruptly cut off. No more appropriations for dues. Or at least, no more lobbying.
The Associated School Boards of South Dakota (ABSD) is one of the organizations singled out by Pat Powers. Their legislative agenda is on the front-page of today’s Mitchell Daily Republic. I can’t find a link to the report, but I did find a link to the press release that the report addressed. The Daily Republic report started out with this:
Associated School Boards of South Dakota recently voted to target education funding, pre-kindergarten standards and property tax inequities during the 2008 legislative session.
Here is what the press release said about the property tax issue:
Commonly referred to as the 150 percent rule, state law allows land sold for more than 150 percent of its value to be taxed as though the sale never happened. According to Department of Revenue estimates, approximately $4 billion in assessed land value is currently off the tax rolls and is not being use for taxation purposes.
As a result, some school districts don’t have a large enough tax base to upgrade education facilities.
"In some school districts, it not just difficult, it’s nearly impossible to provide a safe and suitable learning environment," Alm said. "We need to fix the 150 percent rule before the inequities become more dramatic."
So the taxpayers are providing funded (via dues from their school districts) to an organization that wants to raise taxes to fund education. That does not sound like a good thing for taxpayers.
And what is also silly is the idea that there is not enough funding for K-12 funding, but they want to expand into pre-schools:
Citing the effectiveness and efficiency of high-quality pre-kindergarten programming, school board members also voted to support the "development of content and accreditation standards for voluntary pre-k programs."
Currently, there are no established pre-k standards despite the many public and private entities that offer pre-k services in South Dakota.
Alm said allowing the State Board of Education to develop voluntary standards would provide a measure of uniformity across the state and better align early childhood education programming to K-12 content standards in place.
The Daily Republic reported this:
The ASBSD also supports the creation of content and accreditation standards for voluntary pre-kindergarten programs. There are standards for K-12 math and reading, said Alm, but no such standards exist for the many statewide public and private entities that offer pre-K services. Such content standards would most likely be developed through the state Department of Education, he said. Alm believes the more conscientious operators of daycare and pre-school facilities would be OK with such standards.
I find that most disingenuous. How would he know unless he saw the yet to be developed standards? In fact the content has already been developed, here is the link to the Department of Education web site where you can find them. They were developed with the help of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). And here is a link to the NAEYC web site where you will find South Dakota entities are already received accreditation from the NAEYC (Pick "SD" for state and hit "Search for Programs"). So why does more need to be done, if they want "voluntary" pre-kindergarten programs? Obviously there is an agenda that is not transparent. And as some of you know, I have already expose the real agenda with my post from yesterday. More details to come.
Recent Comments