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I think the oft-repeated claim that the government budgets are filled with waste is just that - a claim. I do not see people bringing evidence to the table with such claims. While I know there is almost always room for improvement, I think the belief that most government budgets are drastically wasteful is not supportable at least at the local and state level when one actually studies the budgets carefully.
Also - the idea that free childcare doesn't benefit everyone directly or indirectly - I'd say that is open to discussion, when one considers the alternatives. Further, people seem to forget that other people's children are the future of this country, state, city, etc. and one way or another things come home to roost.
I voted for Stapleton because I think Polis is another tax and spend Democrat. The fact that Polis is gay was irrelevant to me. I will say that Polis is more personable that Stapleton; I hope he does well.
I voted no on all tax increases. Why? Because I am tired of the solution being to just raise taxes. If the schools and state need money, cut spending. For example, want to fund full time pre-school now? Start cutting sports programs in elementary schools and start cutting administrative positions in school districts. When I went to school, we had approximately 250 kids in K-8 served by one principal, one administrative assistant, and one secretary. My wife taught of one of the local K-5 schools here. One principal, two vice principals, one administrative assistant, four to five secretaries, and at least five specialists (reading comprehension, counselors, etc.) that were more hindrance than help to classroom teachers. And let us not forget the principal siphoning off training funds for classroom teachers so they could attend worthless seminars in Aspen, CO with their administrative assistant.
And when the federal government starting making federal funds more easily available for college students, salaries at state colleges ballooned hand in hand with tuition increases. I was looking at salaries at some PAC12 universities. $250K, $300K, $350K per year for professors is common. I really do not think they are worth that much for a job that is "safe". And think of what their pensions will be; that is, 70% to 80% of their salaries. It is ridiculous.
And while I am on a rant, local and state governments need to eliminate the loophole that allows most firefighters and law enforcement officers to boost their pensions by working unlimited overtime the last few years before they retire. Pensions should be calculated on base salaries, just like the federal government does, and not on their high years that include overtime. There are many cases of firefighters and law enforcement that retire on pensions higher than their base pay.
Last edited by SilverAng; 11-10-2018 at 07:41 AM..
I think the oft-repeated claim that the government budgets are filled with waste is just that - a claim. I do not see people bringing evidence to the table with such claims. While I know there is almost always room for improvement, I think the belief that most government budgets are drastically wasteful is not supportable at least at the local and state level when one actually studies the budgets carefully.
Also - the idea that free childcare doesn't benefit everyone directly or indirectly - I'd say that is open to discussion, when one considers the alternatives. Further, people seem to forget that other people's children are the future of this country, state, city, etc. and one way or another things come home to roost.
There will always be examples if people have an agenda.
I can say any of the following and find examples, but it doesn’t make any of them universally true:
Priests are child predators
Politicians are crooks
Republicans are Nazis
Democrats are socialists
I think the oft-repeated claim that the government budgets are filled with waste is just that - a claim. I do not see people bringing evidence to the table with such claims.
examples:
1. During my medical residency, I spent about 25% of my time working in a VA hospital. The waste, inefficiencies, and lazy do-nothing (clerical) employees were mind-boggling.
2. I have a friend whose bother works for the State of NJ. Each day, he would read from cover to cover, the NY Times, Trenton Times, and Phila Inquirer.
3. Look at the history of the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport.
There will always be examples if people have an agenda.
I can say any of the following and find examples, but it doesn’t make any of them universally true:
Priests are child predators
Politicians are crooks
Republicans are Nazis
Democrats are socialists
Quote:
Originally Posted by BarryK123
examples:
1. During my medical residency, I spent about 25% of my time working in a VA hospital. The waste, inefficiencies, and lazy do-nothing (clerical) employees were mind-boggling.
2. I have a friend whose bother works for the State of NJ. Each day, he would read from cover to cover, the NY Times, Trenton Times, and Phila Inquirer.
3. Look at the history of the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport.
I voted for Stapleton because I think Polis is another tax and spend Democrat. The fact that Polis is gay was irrelevant to me. I will say that Polis is more personable that Stapleton; I hope he does well.
I voted no on all tax increases. Why? Because I am tired of the solution being to just raise taxes. If the schools and state need money, cut spending. For example, want to fund full time pre-school now? Start cutting sports programs in elementary schools and start cutting administrative positions in school districts. When I went to school, we had approximately 250 kids in K-8 served by one principal, one administrative assistant, and one secretary. My wife taught of one of the local K-5 schools here. One principal, two vice principals, one administrative assistant, four to five secretaries, and at least five specialists (reading comprehension, counselors, etc.) that were more hindrance than help to classroom teachers. And let us not forget the principal siphoning off training funds for classroom teachers so they could attend worthless seminars in Aspen, CO with their administrative assistant.
And when the federal government starting making federal funds more easily available for college students, salaries at state colleges ballooned hand in hand with tuition increases. I was looking at salaries at some PAC12 universities. $250K, $300K, $350K per year for professors is common. I really do not think they are worth that much for a job that is "safe". And think of what their pensions will be; that is, 70% to 80% of their salaries. It is ridiculous.
And while I am on a rant, local and state governments need to eliminate the loophole that allows most firefighters and law enforcement officers to boost their pensions by working unlimited overtime the last few years before they retire. Pensions should be calculated on base salaries, just like the federal government does, and not on their high years that include overtime. There are many cases of firefighters and law enforcement that retire on pensions higher than their base pay.
I definitely agree with your last two paragraphs, but those situations have nothing to do with how schools are funded in Colorado.
I’m not sure what your age is or where you’re from, but if you grew up in Colorado before the Gallagher Amendment was passed 1982, your school likely had over 25% more funding than Colorado schools do now. Colorado residential property taxes have fallen by over 66% since 1982. In fact, in 2017, property taxes were cut 9.55% statewide. We should keep up this trend.
Also, I’m curious about the kind of elementary your wife taught at. If it’s a standard suburban elementary in Colorado, it likely had over twice the amount of students as your K-8, which would warrant twice the administrators, which leaves a couple secretaries and specialists to account for. The specialists were likely regulated into existence because of the recent idea that special needs kids are entitled to an education, which just sounds like begging for another handout.
I know in my school district, 14.5% of the school budget goes to administrators. If we could get rid of special education and records keeping, property taxes in my district could be cut by up to 7.25%, which would save my landlord almost $40/year, but the state government overreach requires that local property tax be at 0.020359% of 7.2% of his home’s assessed value, and Cherry Creek School District already has it at the “bare minimum” according to tax and spend liberals. Also, those extra administrators are probably working on the accountability paperwork required to get federal and state funds because they're addicted to the state and federal handouts that make up 55% of CCSD’s budget. Colorado schools’ budgets have already bloated to at least -25% what they were in the good old days and are so wasteful nowadays. If my landlord were gracious enough, he could lower my rent by $3.33/month, but the state government stole that from me to teach special needs kids. Who do they think they are?????
That’s why I voted no on Amendment 73. Schools are so wasteful with things like special education, accountability paperwork, and conferences in places the admins had no control over. That tax increase didn’t apply to the vast majority of Coloradans, but I want to make sure that the oil commodities trader making $500K a year has $6,600 more in his pocket because I might want him to break out the fine wine when I’m inevitably rubbing shoulders in his tax bracket off the $3.33/month rent savings my landlord gave me.
I will also point out that the roads have the exact same wasteful spending issues on similarly catostrophic scales. Putting it into numbers really brings it home just how pathetic governments are.
My gripe with 'waste' in COLO schools is that places like El Paso County has at least 17 school districts. SEVENTEEN! This is just plain NUTS.
How much duplication is there in just this one county... 17+ chiefs, 17+ board staffs, 17+ sets of administrators, transportation directors, legal staff, dietitians for food programs, buyers, maintenance crews, planners, budgeters, the list goes on. No one seems to care about this needless duplication. People yack about "local control" but that's meaningless as Federal and State standards are primary guidelines and parents always have a belly button they can push in the principal's office at their kid's school.
Back in Fairfax County VA we had ONE school board for a county of over 1M people and their schools were nationally top-ten rated with people clamoring to live there for the sake of their kid's education. I lived there 30 years and we NEVER nixed a school bond issue which always passed with at least a 70% YES vote. We got what we paid for.
While I'm at it, why does COLO need 64 counties? SIXTY FOUR! Tremendous duplication and overlap. Just look at the map and it's obvious where many adjacent counties could be combined. This alignment from 100+ years ago is no longer relevant now that modern roads and communications allow much larger spans of control to eliminate redundancy. You can bet your ass Wal-Mart doesn't have 17 regional managers in El Paso County or 64 regional managers in Colorado.
If we want to cut waste and inefficiency in Colorado then I say that THIS is where to start and put the savings into the schools, roads, health departments, etc that actually serve people in the state.
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My gripe with 'waste' in COLO schools is that places like El Paso County has at least 17 school districts. SEVENTEEN! This is just plain NUTS.
How much duplication is there in just this one county... 17+ chiefs, 17+ board staffs, 17+ sets of administrators, transportation directors, legal staff, dietitians for food programs, buyers, maintenance crews, planners, budgeters, the list goes on. No one seems to care about this needless duplication. People yack about "local control" but that's meaningless as Federal and State standards are primary guidelines and parents always have a belly button they can push in the principal's office at their kid's school.
Back in Fairfax County VA we had ONE school board for a county of over 1M people and their schools were nationally top-ten rated with people clamoring to live there for the sake of their kid's education. I lived there 30 years and we NEVER nixed a school bond issue which always passed with at least a 70% YES vote. We got what we paid for.
While I'm at it, why does COLO need 64 counties? SIXTY FOUR! Tremendous duplication and overlap. Just look at the map and it's obvious where many adjacent counties could be combined. This alignment from 100+ years ago is no longer relevant now that modern roads and communications allow much larger spans of control to eliminate redundancy. You can bet your ass Wal-Mart doesn't have 17 regional managers in El Paso County or 64 regional managers in Colorado.
If we want to cut waste and inefficiency in Colorado then I say that THIS is where to start and put the savings into the schools, roads, health departments, etc that actually serve people in the state.
I’ve been taking a break from it, but I have a GIS (Geogrpahic Information Systems) project where I’m imagining political boundaries in Colorado along natural watershed divides. I might just have to post it here once I’m done. Overlapping, confusing, needlessly small, tedious semi-governmental entities can make coherent planning and engineering almost impossible, and there are large swaths of the US that could stand to have a ground-up reorganization that would make public services even more efficient.
I’ve been taking a break from it, but I have a GIS (Geogrpahic Information Systems) project where I’m imagining political boundaries in Colorado along natural watershed divides. I might just have to post it here once I’m done. Overlapping, confusing, needlessly small, tedious semi-governmental entities can make coherent planning and engineering almost impossible, and there are large swaths of the US that could stand to have a ground-up reorganization that would make public services even more efficient.
Amen. America doesn't need 3077 counties, plus thousands more incorporated cities, all with a full suite of elected officials determined to keep their kingdoms. I go back to EL Paso County where most of the population is within the city of COLO SPGS, yet there's a city and county government, plus all the other little city governments like Manitou Springs, Fountain, Monument, etc. So much duplication and overlap which, if eliminated, would bring sanity to a myriad of tax rates and services and free up a good deal of funds for the actual performance of services. Denver metro area has the same issue. It's a mess and no one tries to fix it while our 'leaders' argue over which 'gender' may pee in which restroom. Good grief.
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My gripe with 'waste' in COLO schools is that places like El Paso County has at least 17 school districts. SEVENTEEN! This is just plain NUTS.
Thought technically not government, USPS is the same way. Believe it or not, even though they are only about 2 miles apart, Black Hawk and Central City each have their own post office. There are about 100 residents in Black Hawk and 700 in Central City. I know, there are casinos, too, however, they do their bulk mailings from elsewhere.
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