Texas' High-school Football Obsession and half million dollar sign

[Texas_Signmaker]

This whole thing is just wrong. School systems are complaining everyday that they are BROKE. They keep voting to RAISE SCHOOL TAXES every election! If you live in Texas and own property, your LARGEST bill is from the school systems. Last year some lame-brain board members voted to spend HALF A MILLION DOLLARS on a football stadium scoreboard from (I think) WatchFire. (Congrats on them for at least using a reputable supplier, lol)

But the way they did it was sneaky. It was approved WAY too quickly and before anyone knew anything, it was done. When people caught wind of this they back-tracked and within days instantly said the school received a donation for the sign..... RIIIGHHHHTTTTTTT..OKAY, that's not fishy. They are going to sell ads and have it paid for in 3 years to pay back the "donation loan". Yea, I see that kind of revenue from a small-time high-school footballs team's sign.

BTW, this is not some huge school district in a wealthy area...this is a small-time district in a mid-sized working-class town. The entire district's yearly operating budget is only $16 million, (Link) so spending half a mil is a big deal to these folks. On top of that, they tax at $1.67/per $100 home-valuation, WHICH by the way is the maximum under state law that they can charge...not all / most school districts tax at the maximum rate.

The lengths some meat-heads are willing to go to support high-school football are absurd... I just don't get the obsession over football around here.

They are now being investigated by the state for this... I hope they figure out what happened and if this was right, because it sounds fishy as hell..
ARTICLE: https://www.news-journal.com/news/l...cle_c6122d5a-2670-11e9-b5c7-87401c2602fd.html

 

[equippaint]

This whole thing is just wrong. School systems are complaining everyday that they are BROKE. They keep voting to RAISE SCHOOL TAXES every election! If you live in Texas and own property, your LARGEST bill is from the school systems. Last year some lame-brain board members voted to spend HALF A MILLION DOLLARS on a football stadium scoreboard from (I think) WatchFire. (Congrats on them for at least using a reputable supplier, lol)

But the way they did it was sneaky. It was approved WAY too quickly and before anyone knew anything, it was done. When people caught wind of this they back-tracked and within days instantly said the school received a donation for the sign..... RIIIGHHHHTTTTTTT..OKAY, that's not fishy. They are going to sell ads and have it paid for in 3 years to pay back the "donation loan". Yea, I see that kind of revenue from a small-time high-school footballs team's sign.

BTW, this is not some huge school district in a wealthy area...this is a small-time district in a mid-sized working-class town. The district has one high-school. Spending half a mil is a big deal to these folks.

The lengths some meat-heads are willing to go to support high-school football are absurd... I just don't get the obsession over football around here.

ARTICLE: https://www.news-journal.com/news/l...cle_c6122d5a-2670-11e9-b5c7-87401c2602fd.html

Its all bs. Not much different than cities giving huge tax dollars to build stadiums and tax breaks to draw in companies. It never pays off even though its sold that way. Really, its all to feed the egos of these elected people and finance their hobonobbing with big shots. Fiscal conservatism died off with the dinosaurs but many still try to play one on stage.

 

[Emd2kick]

This whole thing is just wrong. School systems are complaining everyday that they are BROKE. They keep voting to RAISE SCHOOL TAXES every election! If you live in Texas and own property, your LARGEST bill is from the school systems. Last year some lame-brain board members voted to spend HALF A MILLION DOLLARS on a football stadium scoreboard from (I think) WatchFire. (Congrats on them for at least using a reputable supplier, lol)

But the way they did it was sneaky. It was approved WAY too quickly and before anyone knew anything, it was done. When people caught wind of this they back-tracked and within days instantly said the school received a donation for the sign..... RIIIGHHHHTTTTTTT..OKAY, that's not fishy. They are going to sell ads and have it paid for in 3 years to pay back the "donation loan". Yea, I see that kind of revenue from a small-time high-school footballs team's sign.

BTW, this is not some huge school district in a wealthy area...this is a small-time district in a mid-sized working-class town. The entire district's yearly operating budget is only $16 million, (Link) so spending half a mil is a big deal to these folks. On top of that, they tax at $1.67/per $100 home-valuation, WHICH by the way is the maximum under state law that they can charge...not all / most school districts tax at the maximum rate.

The lengths some meat-heads are willing to go to support high-school football are absurd... I just don't get the obsession over football around here.

They are now being investigated by the state for this... I hope they figure out what happened and if this was right, because it sounds fishy as hell..
ARTICLE: https://www.news-journal.com/news/l...cle_c6122d5a-2670-11e9-b5c7-87401c2602fd.html

I wish we were taxed at that rate, that almost a full $1 less per....

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I wish we were taxed at that rate, that almost a full $1 less per....

$1.67 is the max for a Independent School District. Once you add in the college, city and county it's much higher. Where I live (Frisco) it's $2.13. There are some cities around here that are almost $3.

BUT... we have no state income tax

 

[Emd2kick]

$1.67 is the max for a Independent School District. Once you add in the college, city and county it's much higher. Where I live (Frisco) it's $2.13. There are some cities around here that are almost $3.

BUT... we have no state income tax

That makes more sense, but wish we had the income tax deal!

 

[GAC05]

Maybe they can make some of the cost back showing movies on the weekends.

 

[SignosaurusRex]

School officials that are in charge of $$ are the first to spend that same money like drunken bums with children at home that go hungry while daddy is off on a bender. School officials obviously bucking for a career in City, County or State Government seats. ...and the beat goes on..,.

 

[Johnny Best]

"ladda dadda de, ladda dadda di"

 

[billsines]

It's the same everywhere...when people are in charge of big budgets of money that they didn't have to earn have little clue on what responsible spending is. That is the defining difference between government and the private business sector. In our world, our livelihood is at stake, so responsible financial decisions are a must. In their world. the stakes are not nearly as high.

We have an issue like this as we speak. A few years ago in our school district they put up a new admin building estimated at over $1 mill. Pretty simple looking building. Some people were asking why our building trades kids couldn't do it. For heaven's sake, it's right there next to the high school. Easy commute. Additionally, every location in the county (each school as well as the bus garage of all places) got new double sided digital signs that can show moving graphics etc. No one knows how much those cost. Now they are coming out with closing 2 of our 4 elementary schools and axing a ton of teachers because they need to "be responsible adults and trim back on the spending." Why why why did we build a new admin building if we knew we would have two open schools that could have served that purpose????????????

 

[ddarlak]

I wish my school taxes were that low.

maybe you should get elected to the school board and do something about it...

 

[rjssigns]

School down the street spent a million dollars on high tech artificial surfaces for football and track fields. Parents paid for it which really surprised me.

 

[Gino]

Just outta curiosity, would all of you had turned this job down based upon your true feelings expressed so far ??

 

[fresh]

School down the street spent a million dollars on high tech artificial surfaces for football and track fields. Parents paid for it which really surprised me.

i'm not 100% on this statement, but I think turf can actually be more economical in the long run. Maintenance, watering, re-seeing, etc on grass fields is expensive.

 

[rjssigns]

Just outta curiosity, would all of you had turned this job down based upon your true feelings expressed so far ??

I would do the job. Tax dollars get wasted all the time. I have no way of stopping it.

 

[Billct2]

I do work for a large college, whenever they have a project like this they get alumni to pay for it.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Yea, same here. School wants to spend money with me and I just go for it. People have a way of accepting $$.

 

[colorforgeprinting]

I am here is Texas also and I try to charge the school districts I deal with as much as I can to make back all my taxes back.

 

[mkmie]

School officials that are in charge of $$ are the first to spend that same money like drunken bums with children at home that go hungry while daddy is off on a bender. School officials obviously bucking for a career in City, County or State Government seats. ...and the beat goes on..,.

 

[shoresigns]

hobonobbing with big shots.

 

[James Burke]

TLDR main article, but a lot of schools have athletic booster or alumni clubs that raise funds independently of tax dollars. We deal with a lot of organizations that have "friends" groups that do this very thing and they're usually fairly well-funded.

A lot of animosity builds when something like this takes place, but people need to understand that sometimes tax-payer dollars are not (and can not) be used for grand-scale projects such as this.


JB