Include seniors on school tax roll
Dear editor: Recent chatter on social media regarding exempting senior citizens from paying school taxes in Putnam County has me concerned. I think this effort is ill conceived since it does not address the consequences for both the county’s children and for the burden placed on those Putnam residents under 65 years of age.
2020 census data shows 24.8 percent of Putnam’s population is 65 or older. If you remove school revenue from this portion of the population and factor in another 19.3 percent that are under 18 years of age, then you have 55.9 percent of the county’s population with the entire burden of paying for our school system.
Why would we allow this exemption? Historically, those under and those 65 and older share the cost of education. Hopefully, most of us believe the children are our county’s and the nation’s future. When you look at some of our surrounding counties (Baldwin, Newton, Hancock), you see abysmal performance based on Georgia Department of Education and NCDE’s (National Center for Developmental Education) most recent district-wide test scores. The senior exemption measure to eliminate a critical portion of school funding will lead us down the same trail. Putnam County is better than that.
I dislike tax season like the rest of us, but let’s face the fact we all need to not only ensure due diligence but pay the bill. I am not happy that our school district is not doing better in both math and reading test scores. This despite our results being significantly better than some other local counties. Potential defunding a substantial amount from our school system makes as much sense as defunding our police and our FBI.
As a senior citizen we need to appreciate that we still have civic responsibilities. Let’s not pass the buck to our younger citizens who likely have more bills to pay than we do. I love living in Putnam County. Strong and highly performing schools are great for future business development and having our children and future generations succeed. Please don’t encourage negative dialogue which hurts our schools’ ability to perform at a high level.
John T. Mitchell