Temple, NH Open Forum

templenh · Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2024 8:27 am Post subject: School Taxes are too High

The subject of school taxes was brought up in the Town Meeting Forum. I agree with CCK who said:

JenW · Joined: 04 Apr 2024 Posts: 20 Location: Temple, NH

Too high and now going up, if the new education funding bill passes. Did anyone read about that yet? What do you think?

On a humorous note, someone I know was complaining about paying for driveway plowing with our taxes. He has a short driveway and doesn't mind doing it himself. He said that it is really only a good thing for people like me who have excessively long driveways (hey, I didn't build the house all the way up there, blame my dad for wanting that incredible view! Very Happy

).

I don't have any kids yet, so I told him that I would be happy to pay to plow my own driveway if he wanted to pay for his own kids to go to school... I never heard him complain about driveway plowing again. Wink

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templenh · Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2024 9:29 am Post subject:

JenW · Joined: 04 Apr 2024 Posts: 20 Location: Temple, NH

Did you know that 105 children are home-schooled in the ConVal District? The only other districts in the State with higher numbers are Manchester and Mascenic. I hope that says something good about the parents in the district and not something bad about the school. I graduated.... a WHILE ago from ConVal so I don't have any current reference for the quality of the school. I have heard that Temple Elementary is wonderful, though.

I looked up the District Assessments and it is very interesting reading. Here is the link, so that everyone can form their own opinion: ConVal Assessment 2024-2004

Graduate Report 2024-2003

There are some interesting things on the site but, of course, statistics are a two-edged sword. You can use them to prove either side of an arguement... which might be why I like them so much! Wink

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Ninth generation and counting... but not too quickly, thank you!

keyinnh · Joined: 05 Feb 2024 Posts: 1 Location: Temple

No matter where you live you're going to pay taxes. Part of those taxes WILL go to things you may not necessarily need or use and it's unfair to want to pick and choose which item you want to pay for. I used to live in a condo...I had to pay town taxes. Part of those taxes went to plowing...ofcourse living in a condo i had to pay a condo fee which helped pay for plowing the condo community. What I'm saying is I had to pay for plowing twice...once for the public road and once for the area I lived in. Bottom line is I chose to live there and was aware of the fees and taxes. If you want cheaper taxes move somewhere else. You may not have kids but other people do and naturally they want their kids to go to a good school. My wife is a teacher and it's absolutely mind boggling on how people who don't have kids could care less. It's embarrasing. Don't you want the kids of your community to have good opportunites? Don't you want kids in your community to grow up well educated?

Now I'm not saying I enjoy paying taxes - but they help pay for things that are necessary for all people in different ways.

JenW · Joined: 04 Apr 2024 Posts: 20 Location: Temple, NH

g47 · Joined: 28 Apr 2024 Posts: 2 Location: Temple

I will admit that I don’t follow where every last dollar I pay in taxes goes but I find the question “are taxes too high” somewhat bizarre. Well yes, taxes are too high and in fact until the government starts paying me to live in NH they’ll never be low enough. I think the question really is are taxes fair? On a Federal level NH gets a serious kick in the you-know-what by Uncle Sam. NH consistently ranks near dead last when it comes to how much we pay out in taxes versus how much we receive in Federal funding. Last I read for every dollar a NH citizen pays in fed taxes we only get back 67 cents when our friends in Hawaii get back a ~$1.60 for each dollar paid in taxes….hmmm. Check out the other states that get more than they pay in….you should note that these states are not exactly known for the quality of their education systems (note, there’s a point buried there).

As for local taxes in NH, it’s currently the law that NH provide an adequate education for their children (though some extremists would argue with the language of that constitutional law). This means that local and state governments must raise cash to fund and educate the kids. How those taxes are raised are accomplished through a variety of vehicles, but most notably property taxes and NOT income or sales and use taxes.

Because the tax is tied to something subjective like “property”, value can vary from street to street based on who’s doing the looking (ie, the assessing). If you noticed during the last assessment the company that did the assessment said that they wanted to inspect your house to understand the quality of materials and craftsmanship inside. In other words they wanted to tax the rich (yes that’s what it really says otherwise they would have said that they wanted to see “how poorly constructed the house is”). In this regard how schools are funded in Temple is not fair because taxes would appear to be based on subjectivity (someone’s opinion of “quality” and “craftsmanship” which may contain a prejudice and for which there is no universal agreement what these two things really mean). If taxes were instead based on square footage, number of acres, number of bedrooms, number of garages, total outbuildings / size, and total water frontage (things that can be tangibly measured), then it would be accurate and fair no matter where you went in town. But until that happens I can’t say that taxes are fair and of course taxes are always too high.

For “the rich” NH is a nice state to live during your working years. NH is one of the few places in America where someone making an average salary can pay a huge-huge percentage of their income in state/local taxes versus someone making good money who may pay a fractionally insignificant percentage of their income in state/local taxes.

What was the question again?
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