We have to be selective with our priorities

Dear editor:

The headline you put on my last letter was misleading. I didn't say we can't afford more taxes; I said we need to think how we are going to pay for what we want.

That means asking the hard questions. Let's quit that tired old formula we hear every bond election, that it's only $8 a month for a $100,000 house. When I first came here in 1973, few people had houses assessed that high. Now, that won't buy an average house. People who bought back then and retired on fixed incomes had no idea they'd someday pay taxes on a $400,000 house.

You can play Pollyanna and talk about a "leap of faith," but we're entering an economic recession. Foreclosures are rising. People are getting hurt. Remember grandma's word's when you had money to buy candy: "You can have anything you want, but you can't have everything you want."

It would help if the Mountain Home News put stories in context, so voters don't lack information. Can you explain why our school district spends over $25 million per year, but the high school and junior high still failed to achieve state academic goals for the last five years? What effect will federal sanctions have on the school district's ability to use this new school they want? Will our big new school be half empty while the school district money pays families to send kids to better schools, and we still pay the bond?

If we decide to spend $37 million on the new school, can we plan on a broader use facility? Can some of the cost be offset by consolidation? Do we really need separate buildings for elementary, middle, junior high, high school, alternative school, and administrative offices?

Wouldn't it be cheaper to do more online schooling and stagger the hours or the days or the months for campus time so the same buildings could be used for more kids? There are lots of other ways, but, if what we've been doing doesn't work, isn't it time to try something different?

This is a rural area. It's a nice place to raise your kids. But, there are tradeoffs. Property taxes will not support a metropolitan area lifestyle. So, if you want all the nice things available in Boise, move to Boise. Not that we can't have any of the things they have in Boise; just not all of them.

We have to be selective and set priorities. And, we have to be creative about how we pay for what we select.

Jim Breslin