Education taxes not a ‘hot mess’

JOHN R. WIENS

WHILE I mostly agree with Dan Lett’s analysis ( Councillors brace for impact when provincial education property tax hikes hit mailboxes, March 19), there are some significant reasons to challenge his statement about education funding being “a hot mess.”

As for the suburban councillors’ despondency, I find it hard to be sympathetic. My experience has been that most homeowners, even if they do not understand fully the purposes of all property taxes, do understand that some of them go to fund city services and some to the school division they live in. This has been made clear repeatedly by the separation of the taxes on the tax notices.

In my view, councillors should be pleased that some citizens might actually consider them an essential part of the adequate funding of children’s education. The issue is not, as implied, lack of accountability or ownership — nothing is hidden and trustees are quite willing to take credit for their decisions. The councillors’ complaints seem more selfserving than conscientious leadership.

What is a hot mess is what the current government was left with at the end of the last Conservative era, akin to what they were left with after the previous one — the Conservatives would do well to rethink several aspects of their political strategies. Manitobans have repeatedly let them know that they are less concerned about tax savings than they are about support for public education.

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