Letters to the Editor: 04/15/2008

April 16, 2008 04:00 am

—

Tweak Proposal A

As a transplant from one of the "rich school districts" downstate, I am commenting on your school funding editorial of March 27.

Years ago, when our children became of school age, the single most important criteria for choosing the location for a new residence was the quality of the education program. We knew that the school millage in Bloomfield Township would be higher, but we were prepared to sacrifice other items. Later, we moved to Birmingham and continued to support further increases in school millage. We viewed that as our responsibility.

As a consequence, when Proposal A was adopted and school finances were frozen at "Foundation Day," these significantly higher tax burdens on those homeowners in those districts were recognized. To this day, Oakland County is a donor county to the rest of the state for school funding.

The fault lies in large part with the failure of Proposal A and the demise of other sources of school revenue. There were 17 revenue sources allowed to expire or eliminated that previously funded public schools. These revenue sources were not replaced.

Proposal A needs to be tweaked to provide a stable long-term funding source for all public school districts in Michigan.

Ken Pickering
Williamsburg

Adding to experience

The April 4 Associated Press article concerning 14,000-year-old human waste was excellent. The photo was also an important part of the article and in excellent taste. A suggestion for future articles of this type would be to include a "scratch and sniff" attachment.

Dick Smith

Empire

Remove tax penalty

About the mortgage crisis legislation, I hope provisions were made for those of us who had to use early withdrawal from our 401(k) plans to prevent foreclosure. As in other special cases, the 10 percent penalty should be removed. Being taxed at our current rates is to be expected.

I'm sure there are thousands of people in this boat. We thought we were being responsible by not declaring bankruptcy or foreclosure. Were we? Or should we have waited for some kind of government bailout? If the Senate can bail out second homeowners, they can certainly remove the additional 10 percent tax penalty, making it retroactive.

If they included this, my hat's off to them. If not, it should be included with the current legislation. I can only hope our U.S. senators were smart enough to consider all the above. After IRS wage garnishment, we will be in the foreclosure pool next.

James Radsvick
Traverse City