Livingston Parish has a chance to do the decent thing on Saturday: vote ‘yes’ on 1 percent sales tax for teacher pay

Livingston Parish has a chance to do the decent thing on Saturday: vote ‘yes’ on 1 percent sales tax for teacher pay

March 16, 2023 by tomaswell

A bumper sticker spotted years ago pretty much says it all: “If you can read this, thank a teacher.”

Each and every one of us – whether you’re a high school dropout or a Ph.D. in quantum physics – owes a debt of gratitude to teachers. We all are called on to read and write and to perform basic math throughout our lives and no matter how resistant one may have been to learning, at least something did sink in.

We live in a world where it’s virtually impossible to function in society without knowing the rudiments of communication and calculation. You may not be a decent speller or know proper grammar and those algebra lessons are long forgotten but you know enough to get by and that knowledge is courtesy of an overworked, underpaid, often exasperated teacher.

Which brings me to my second point: I don’t like paying taxes any more than the next guy.

But the truth is, if you want something, anything, there’s generally a price.

You want police and fire protection? Garbage pickup? Gas and electricity? Streets? Sewerage? Well, there’s a cost to those services. Someone is dependent on a paycheck to keep those things coming your way and taxes are the only way to pay for them.

Even Homeowners Associations have self-imposed taxes (but they’re called “fees” instead) that the homeowners are assessed.

Same for teachers. Your kids may be up and out of the house, moved away, or maybe you don’t even have kids at all, so why should you be concerned about teachers? Well, you may never need the fire department, either, and you may never have to call the police to help you against a home invasion. But it’s nice to know they are or were there when needed.

Teachers are essential to our general well-being. Yet, they are the most unappreciated, most put-upon, most criticized and most underpaid segment of our society. Why is that? Why do we as a society put such a premium on someone who can shoot a basket or throw a pass while snubbing the most important contribution to the economic, scientific, and artistic progress and well-being of us as a civilization?

It defies logic that Livingston Parish, one of the better education systems in the state, is losing teachers by the droves to places like Central which pays its teachers thousands of dollars more.

This Saturday, voters in Livingston Parish will have a chance to go to the polls and vote on a 1 percent sales and use tax dedicated exclusively to implementing teacher pay raises in the parish.

The turnout will be miniscule, I’m sure, with a concentration of anti-votes. One of those anti-votes will no doubt be cast by, of all people, a current member of the Livingston Parish School Board. That mystifies me. If a member of the school board cannot bring herself to support our schools and teachers, she should get the hell off the board.

The school board is promoting the tax with town hall meetings in an effort to generate support. But the one thing that escapes me is how little State Sen. Rogers Pope has been utilized to endorse the measure. I know he would throw his efforts behind the tax if only he were asked to do so.

Pope, a former Livingston Parish School Superintendent, went on to be elected by wide margins first to the Louisiana House of Representatives and then to the State Senate. You’d think a man of his credentials would’ve been scooped up to serve on the education committees of the respective chambers. But noooo, that would just make too much sense.

Now, after representing his district admirably and honestly, Pope is hanging it up. His retirement will be Livingston Parish’s loss, make no mistake. He has spent his entire tenure in the legislature supporting the state’s teachers and public education despite being consistently passed over for a seat on the education committee of either chamber. Maybe his support of public education went against the grain of the Republican legislature (even though he is a Republican).

But back to Saturday’s election. It is critical that this tax pass so that Livingston Parish may become competitive with surrounding systems and so that it may retain our more outstanding teachers.

Taxes are unpopular. I know that. But they are necessary. It makes no sense to deprive teachers of a living wage while the state continues to give generous tax breaks to industries and businesses who all too often fail to live up to the rosy employment promises it makes in order to get those breaks.

But we can do something on the local level – something good and decent – to reward the heroes of any society, our teachers. To my fellow Livingston Parish residents: Please vote yes Saturday.