re: Together BR, teacher union: Deny all industrial tax exemptions

The issue of corporate tax breaks is an interesting question.

1) Let’s assume that the intended purpose of any corporate tax break is to encourage a particular business to locate and/or not leave the taxing area. (Leave out corruption and cronyism for this discussion).

2) Furthermore, let’s assume there is no competitor in the taxing area that is getting disadvantaged by the tax break to their competition.

3) Let’s also assume that without the tax break, the business will not come, and/or will leave, or won’t expand to increase jobs and tax revenue.

At that point, I think it’s simply a mathematical question for a community. Does the benefit of the tax break outweigh the loss in tax revenue?

The devil, then, is in the details of the assumptions made, not in the practice itself.

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By dropping tax exemption, they will have 0 dollars to disperse because no one will build facilities here.

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Aren't we last in every economic category. To quote our CINC, at this point what do we have to lose?

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let's push out Exxon, Dow, IBM, etc. Those tax cuts we get in return will mean raises yall!

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That's speaking truth to power

Yeah good luck to them with that.

Potential St George residents may not be able to smack them down. Exxon Mobil, Dow, et all though? They will not be impressed.

2 years ago the School Board asked EBR Parish taxpayers to trust them with a penny sales tax increase. We did. That penny was to go to new schools, and school upgrades (it did and they are very nice), for discipline and for teacher pay raises so the talent pool could be improved.

I have seen no sign that overall we've gotten better teachers.

EBR spends more money than many per student; yet our system is a mixed bag. We have some great schools and great students; however, we have too many poor schools, and too many poor test scores.

Money hasn't helped the overall system. Teachers crying for more raises less than a month after folks just renewed the one cent tax is pathetic. They waited until after the vote to bitch knowing voters were not too involved in the last election.

I have yet to see the Teacher's Union offer good, sound suggestions to improve the schools or their profession other than more money for them. They never push teacher standards and accountability because they know too many of them are just not that good.

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You can’t increase pay without increasing requirements.

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Well yeah you can and its much easier than doing it the opposite way. The problem is you are paying some people above what they should be paid, but you just up your requirements to keep jobs and they will be forced to comply or be replaced.

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Scruffy wages that a majority of teachers are not worthy of a significant pay raise

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its pretty sad that we dont value our educators more in this country, we are slipping behind and it will catch us in the next 50 years bad.

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They also wouldn’t like the outcome considering that many of them would likely lose their jobs or will be replaced by someone far more qualified.

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Forced to better themselves or move on, it is what it is. Feelings of someone shouldnt be taken in account if they are not qualified

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You can’t increase pay without increasing requirements.

They need to at least happen at the same time.

Scruffy wages that a majority of teachers are not worthy of a significant pay raise.

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This isn't isolated to teachers, it's the case with most government workers.

Are government workers not good employees because they don't get paid enough, so they aren't attracting talent? Or are the existing ones not deserving of pay increases?

You can put yourself in a bind with that logic. Because if you acknowledge that you could get better talent with more pay, but don't want to pay the existing employees more, then you are just stuck with the status quo.

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Well yeah you can and its much easier than doing it the opposite way. The problem is you are paying some people above what they should be paid, but you just up your requirements to keep jobs and they will be forced to comply or be replaced.

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That is increasing both concurrently.

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its pretty sad that we dont value our educators more in this country, we are slipping behind and it will catch us in the next 50 years bad.

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Value?

You seem to have this idea that people reject teachers outright. That isn’t true.

The profession has been failing the children of this country for decades.

These opinions have basis in fact.

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Feelings of someone shouldnt be taken in account if they are not qualified

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Agreed. That is antithetical to the concept of all unions though.

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By dropping tax exemption, they will have 0 dollars to disperse because no one will build facilities here.

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Bingo.

And that's an inconvenient truth by people demanding these exemptions. They assume that those facilities would come either way.

Amazon isn't building anywhere without a massive tax incentive. Even broke arse Chicago is offering over $2 billion in rebates and incentives to lure them.

The teachers have nothing to do with how good or how poorly the school performs. Demographics of the school mean everything. You have to have parents that give a shite about education and don’t look at the schools as daycares so they can do crack and breed with random strangers in the neighborhood all day.

I’m not saying they need a raise. 52k a year seems pretty reasonable when considering COL in the BR area. The teachers that really need pay bumps are the ones in rural parishes who are earning 39-43k a year. Also, teachers are accountable for EVERYTHING a student does or does not do in class. Write Jamal up for misbehaving in class? “Well, what were you doing as a teacher that left him so bored where he needed to act out for entertainment”

Nobody on this board, myself included, would trade your current occupation and salary to be a teacher.