BURKEonBOARD

(Nov. 20, 2008) – A Wall Street Journal article on Thursday, Nov. 20, (This Time Around, Health-Care Revamp Has Wings, link good for seven days) makes it pretty clear that, whether it’s next year or sometime soon after, universal health care is coming to our shores.

We can argue whether this is a good thing or not, but one thing is clear; it means that the Farmington school board shouldn’t be talking about raising taxes and selling bonds to fund future school district retiree health benefits 20 and 30 years into the future.

The board has already tentatively approved a tax increase to fund a $12 million bond sale in 2009. They have to confirm that tax increase with another vote in December sometime after the state-mandated Truth in Taxation hearing on December 2.

The reason for the bond sale (a bad idea in any case) would vanish if universal health care were established in the U.S. But the school district’s tax payers would still be saddled with the repayment of the $12 million bond sale regardless.

The fact is that our district can handle the anticipated retiree health insurance bill for the next several years, paying for it as we always have, from the district’s general fund. We have time to see how the health insurance dance ends in Washington before binding our local taxpayers to yet another tax increase for an expense that may not materialize.

We need to tell our school board members to “wait just a minute, or a year” on this tax increase. We probably won’t need it at all. We certainly don’t need it now.

Here are their email addresses:

Julie McKnight, chair – jmcknight@farmington.k12.mn.us
Tim Weyandt – tweyandt@farmington.k12.mn.us
John Kampf – jkampf@farmington.k12.mn.us
Terry Donnelly – tdonnelly@farmington.k12.mn.us
Bob Heman – bheman@farmington.k12.mn.us
Ann Manthey – amanthey@farmington.k12.mn.us