74- . No (775 Votes)
- . Yes (450 Votes)
- . Undecided; open (144 Votes)
This is not a scientific poll — results reflect only the opinions of those voting.
Big Q
Do you support HSTA’s call for a state constitutional amendment to dedicate funds for educators and school programs?
Comments (24)
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In my opinion, problem can be address by not having to add an addendum to our constitution. I hope this is not being promoted as a means to secure votes with a voting block. Just saying… 🙂
Agree with wn – if you address it this way as an (amendment) the tax NEVER goes away, or is it properly monitored. Pigs all come running to the trough and the money goes for anything and everything except for what it was planned for.
My guess is that like our Government the problem is to big of a bureaucracy and needs to be minimized to run like a well oiled institution rather than a giant cluster $uck like our local Government. NO RAISING TAXES AS WE ARE TAXED TO DEATH IN HAWAII.
Getting the people to vote for more taxes will never work, try it, LOL.
Actually, with the way that it’s currently worded, i.e., tax on “investment properties,” I think many people would support that. That’s why these bills need to be stopped now.
Yes…the devil is in the cleverly worded and misleading text the government or self interested organizations put out…
There is no such thing as a “dedicated fund”. Money is fungible. A dedicated fund is nothing more than a bookkeeping entry in a journal or a line item in a budget. Administrators have the ability to transfer funds from one budget item to another. This is no different. Just another excuse to raise our taxes. Wake up Hawaii!
State Lottery is pretty much the answer every year but the legislature always gets cold feet about it at the last minute.
Amen.
Thank goodness!
This is simple, if you want to pay the teachers more, just make a Law where they will get $1more than any other bargaining Union in the State. They are the most valuable State employees. Back them, support them and monitor them to live up to expectations. Raise the bar, but also get the parents, somehow. to have their child ready to learn everyday!
(Bd): “(Teachers)are the most valuable State employees.”
It does not take 12 years at $12,000 per pupil-year to teach a normal child to read and compute. It is a clear conflict of interest for government schools to provide History, Economics, and Civics instruction. Most vocational training occurs more effectively on the job than in a classroom. In abstract, the education industry is a highly unlikely candidate for State (government, generally) operation or even subsidy. Compulsory attendance laws, minimum wage laws, and child labor laws put on-the-job training off-limits to most normal children.
Until the DOE utilizes the teachers that they have in a more efficient and productive manner, we should not give them any more money. A primary reason the HSTA and teachers give for more money is “teacher shortage” which is not true.
There is no such things as “special fund.” Anyone who tries to convince you there is is lying to you and will lie about other things as well*
*see also: “tempory tax.”
See also: “On time, on budget”
LMFAO
Money is not the problem…we already pay enough per student based on national averages…the problem is what we are getting for that money.
I support more money for schools. Question is, what Constitutional Amendment is required? If a Constitutional Amendment is required to introduce a state property tax to support education, I am in favor of that. I’d like Education funding to be separate from the general state fund. Nonetheless, I do think that greater details and transparency regarding how current education funds are being spent is the first thing that has to happen before taxpayers are going to be willing to pay more taxes — even me. I have seen a tremendous amount of waste over the past 10 years during my association with Hawaii public education, and I’ve also seen local school budgets stretched beyond a reasonable limit while basic services (like a librarian, a vice principal, a school nurse, small classroom size, etc.) go unfunded. So, on this broad question of the day, I definitely vote YES.
Not a valid poll. This started as a proposal for the state to begin to significantly tax out of state property speculators, vacation rental properties that were permitted as residential housing, and time share properties, but HSTA wanted those revenues dedicated to the HSTA. I would support that revenue going into the general fund and the HSTA would get a slice of that.
What happened to choice D: “H3LL No”. Currently the DOE’s budget is a combined total of at least $2.3B. That includes $400M of Federal funds plus a small amount of local funds. Why isn’t the state asking the feds for a bigger cut? Why aren’t parents with kids specifically targeted to pay more just like how the city wants to increase vehicle taxes and charge owners by the mile? Parents that send their kids to private school don’t use any of that public school money for their kids. Looking a little over $380M extra that the DOE gets to spend on the 185,000 public school kids. The state should be sending out thank you cards to the parents that send their kids to private school.
Parents who send their kids to private schools can afford the expense. The worse thing that would happen to their kids is that they would be attending public school.
If there is need for dedicated funds to insure essential state funding, I would prefer it go to social services, unemployment benefits, and non-profits. HSTA is being selfish here. Some of their students mey become homeless in a bad economy. We need to insure that does not happen.
Hawaii is not going to be a Mike Pence and cut teachers to balance a state budget.
Hawaii has the only state school system in the nation, which is a good thing because elsewhere, they are at the mercy of the local property tax for the school budget. In the 60’s Hawaii had the potential to be the best school system because it was statewide. What happened? It became top heavy, and more bureaucratic rather than attending to the student. Blame the unions!
The schools take the biggest chunk of the budget.
And the dedicated revenue would drain more money out of Honolulu. The outer islands take enough of the general fund as it is.
Honoluluites should have some say about how much the outer islands can take from Honolulu.
If by six-grade you don’t learn. No more school. That will let the money be spent on the ones who need it. let Trump decide what too do with the rest of us :-
I agree with “bumbai” – problem is how money is spent and with any gov’t agency it is never ‘wisely’ but ‘wastefully’!