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State law should be amended to give municipal governments more control over the budgets of the various Boards of Education. As tax season rolls around every year, it becomes painfully evident to homeowners that education does not come cheap. An increasing percent of our property taxes goes to funding the many local education systems in our communities. Of all the taxing bodies that benefit around April 15th, the taxes that go towards education are not always being spent in the most effective or transparent ways. The money that goes towards Board of Education budgets has a direct effect on municipal governments.

Public schools can often become the heart of the community. Successful and well known school have the ability to draw residents to communities. On the other side, school systems with negative reputations have the ability to prevent people from settling in otherwise wonderful neighborhoods or towns. Municipalities are dependent on the success of their educational systems. For government to be able to function smoothly, better communication and transparency must be fostered between these two major players in community building.

Local and state educational boards are often major players in land use decisions in communities. Often decisions made by a Board of Education may be quite contradictory to the adopted comprehensive plan of a municipality. Many communities have seen the negative effect of schools utilizing greenfield development on the outskirts of towns, making it impossible for students to walk to class and leaving empty buildings to rot in downtown centers. These moves negatively effect students, citizens, and the financial well being of the local government.

Municipalities who are looking to utilize progressive revitalization programs such as Tax Increment Financing (TIF) find themselves as odds with local school systems. TIF is method used to fund economic development in communities where it otherwise would not be able to occur on its own. Sections of the community have their tax revenue frozen at the year the project begins and all additional revenues are used to fund the project. When the project is finally paid off, the freeze is lifted and the full amount of the property tax can then be collected by the municipality and school boards. The largest roadblock for municipalities who wish to use this innovative tool is found in the fact that local funding is pulled from area schools. State funding can either increase or decrease depending on the amount of TIF that is used in the state and how much tax revenue is held from the school boards. If municipalities had more control over education budgets, innovative tax structures could be used more successfully due to an ability to better plan ahead and work in concert with each other.

Schools are such a driving factor in communities that it is almost criminal how little input and control municipalities have over Educational Boards. As the two major players in property taxes, it is imperative that these two entities are encouraged to work in concert together and put aside many of the petty problems that prevent successful cooperation between local government and the Board of Education.

Learn more about this author, Joan Huston.
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