Good public schooling, which is so necessary in order to have a continual well-informed and well-educated population, is obviously something in which the proper funding of, as well as the requisite infrastructure of, will pay significant dividends in the future, for thus having a literate as well as an engaged public, who clearly then understand the importance and value of civic virtue. This would seem to strongly suggest that all activities that promote as well as to provide valued funds to those public schools are a net benefit to society; whereas, those activities and decisions which unfairly take away from the funding of public schools should be seen as a tragedy for that schooling.
It has been said, that property taxes typically provide about 60% of the funding for public schools – which signifies that because property taxes are of such importance to those schools getting the funding that they so need, that anything that unfairly reduces the burden for some, such as corporations, and then removes that funding from ever reaching the public schools, because those corporations have received favorable tax abatement, should be not only actively discouraged, but in every single case, be very closely examined as to whether or not there is any tangible worth in even doing so.
Those entities that control the purse, in the sense that they are the ones that offer meaningful employment to the citizens of a given community, know that the lure of those jobs, and of that economic activity, is going to be of a real enticement to any community’s governance and the decisions, so made, thereof. After all, most communities have a strong desire to not only be vibrant and hence be a desirable place to live for their denizens, but they are also future oriented, and thus are longing to see that their community is not only competitive in regards to other nearby communities, but also has a plan in place, that demonstrates true vision and purpose. That is why, those corporations that promise all sorts of jobs, and all sorts of benefits, that only want in return, some favorable property tax abatement, as well as some necessary infrastructure improvements, often seem to be, in whole, a fair bargain.
The thing about corporations, and especially those corporations that are highly successful, with a core of very intelligent and adept professionals that know their business and their objectives through and through, is that this is never going to be a fair negotiation between that successful corporation against those that are the civil servants of that community, who typically are not well versed in this general type of negotiation, and often fail to do a thorough due diligence about not only the terms and conditions of the deal, but also to take into full account the overall impact of favorable property tax abatement for those said corporations. Indeed, what seems to be lacking from the equation is that whenever corporations don’t pay their fair share of property taxes, this then is going to present a situation in which the school budget will get ever tighter or lower, to the probable adverse effect of the education of those students. In sum, it seems a real shame, that for-profit corporations that receive favorable property tax abatement, will often leave public schools stressed and hurting, and their students then with a real raw deal.