Madison taxes outpace income

Letter to the editor
Published: May 15, 2008

Editor:

There were many, many “We’re worth it” lapel stickers being worn at last week’s budget hearings by teachers and students alike. The phrase implies that some believe a teacher’s worth is totally defined by the paycheck, and a student’s worth is totally defined by per pupil spending. Paychecks and per pupil spending are certainly related to our concept of worth, but our expenditures are equally determined, perhaps more strongly determined, by their affordability.

Since roughly 70 percent of expenditures in the school budget are for paychecks and not for other parts of the budget, I focus on pay in what follows. That said, what follows applies equally to the school board portion of the budget and to the county general fund portion.

County taxes during the last decade have risen at roughly five times the rate of income, and other costs are also increasing. Continuing to support such rates of tax increases is an almost impossible struggle for all families whose income matches the county average or is below that. This is particularly the case for the 30 percent of Madison County families with incomes at or below $30,000. Comparability in our pay to that of neighboring counties is affordable to families whose incomes are median and above only if those incomes are equal to or greater than our neighbors’ median incomes.

Madison’s 2004 median household income was $42,948; among some of the counties with which we might compare pay scales are Rappahannock ($53,062), Fauquier ($70,652), Albemarle ($55,118), and Fairfax, representing the extreme ($83,829). With our median household income ranging from 52 percent to 81 percent of theirs, too many of our families would have to sacrifice all other aspects of well-being, the basics of food, shelter, and medical care, to the goal of pay comparability. (For this data, see http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/51/51.../html).

Stable families have as much worth as solid education does. Stable families depend on the affordability of life’s basic necessities. Thus, the budget increases initially requested by the school board and those reflected in the board of supervisors budget proposal considered at the hearing are both equally inappropriate and damaging to the public interest. The line must be held throughout the entire budget, and not just in the school board portion.

Any other result is unaffordable to so many in the county, making it totally irresponsible. I expect better of the board of supervisors.

Jean Kane
Brightwood