Dear Editor:
In a recent article the Jefferson City School District informed us that the school tax rate was not going to increase this year. No tax increases is always good news.
The article went on to tell us what a great deal we are getting and compared the Jefferson City rate with that of Russellville, 3.6934 vs 4.1542, a difference of 0.4608.
Getting fed only certain information always makes me wonder what I'm not being told. I went on the state's web site and learned the following. The reason for the difference is because the Russellville rate includes 0.88 for debt service while the Jefferson City rate only includes 0.22 for debt service. Without the debt service the rates become Jefferson City 3.4714 vs Russellville's rate of 3.2742. I don't know how new the schools are in Russellville but I do know that once we are forced to pay for a new high school Jefferson City's rate will raise significantly.
Some other statistics are quite interesting. When comparing the "Current Expenditure Per Average Daily Attendance" we find Jefferson City at $8,890 compared to Russellville's $8,481. When comparing the Current Expenditure Per Graduate we find Jefferson City at $156,327 compared to Russellville's $148,620.
I am glad my tax rate is lower than Russellville's, but the reason is because Jefferson City has a much larger tax base; $132,008 per average daily attendance vs Russellville's $90,402.
2014 IMAP scores were also interesting. Russellville proficiency scores on English/math/science/social studies were 60.5/69.6/67.2/57.8 whiles Jefferson City's scores were 51.4/51.4/53.2/51.6. I believe those scores are much more indicative of parenting effort/skills than teacher effort/skills. Education spending is certainly not the issue.
And now you have the rest of the story.
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