The Interest in My Whereabouts Is...Interesting

Last night, I went to a meeting where a group of citizens, many of them from the "Old Teachers" group, learned about our upcoming millage. We tossed around ideas for clarifying to the public what the millage is for and why it's important that voters support it. We heard from a man who recently ran a successful campaign in another school district. It was informative and important.

Apparently, my leaving home after the dinner hour was an Event of Interest to local keyboard warriors, and to be honest, it's not something I do often, so I'll share with you what I learned.

--Onaway Area Schools has a millage vote on August 6th. It's not for new stuff. It's to keep the doors open. It's not unusual. All Michigan school districts MUST levy 18 mills on non-homestead property to receive their full foundation allowance.

--Millage is the operating money a school gets from taxes. A failure of this millage vote would send our per-pupil funding from $9608 to $3620 and result in a loss of $3.16 million/year. This would mean drastic cuts. While no one knows for sure how that would be done, we can assume that "extras" would go first: sports, clubs, programs, bussing, etc. Possibly upper grades, 6-12, would go to on-line learning. Classrooms might well double in size as we'd go from two at each elementary grade level to one.

--In Michigan, millage is NOT collected on homesteads. It's a property tax, but if you live on your property, you're not taxed for millage.

--There is no rise in taxes. Because the old millage has run out, it's called a new levy, but it's what we as a community have provided for years, no bigger than it was before.

So what needs to happen?

*Everyone needs to vote for our operating millage.

*Early voting starts as early as June 28th in some locations. In-person voting is August 9th.

This isn't a time to express your unhappiness with any part of the district, the government, or the political system. We all need to recognize that our kids need a school, and the school needs our vote.

As a result of the meeting, we started a citizens' group with the title OASYes. Anyone interested in joining can do so. It's not secret. It's not divisive. It's grownups doing the work that needs to be done to keep our school going.

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