Dorchester Times: State Lawmakers Coming To Saline County Re: Education Funding

Saturday, September 21, 2013

State Lawmakers Coming To Saline County Re: Education Funding

Should you be forced to fund your own school district -- while also being required to subsidize schools with large populations of non-English speaking students? Should you be forced to fund your own school -- while you're also forced to subsidize Lincoln and Omaha schools?

Like it or not, that is how it is working in Nebraska.

In our state, most property tax dollars go to your local K-12 school district. To help those districts that are outspending their property tax revenues, the state government has traditionally kicked in around $1 billion of state aid every year. It's all based on a complex, ever-changing formula that even governors can't explain.

But did you know that currently 114 out of 249 districts receive no equalization aid? Not a dime. And Dorchester Public Schools is one of those districts that receive no state aid. (Recall our previous report that showed Dorchester has the lowest levies in the county, which, combined with no state aid, makes for another reason to praise current DPS administrators and school board officials.)

However, next door, Crete Public Schools is a huge recipient of equalization dollars, primarily due to their Spanish speaking population. Schools in Omaha and Lincoln and most of Nebraska's larger cities are also large state aid recipients.

In short, the state is telling small, rural school districts to provide for themselves, while subsidizing urban school districts with general tax dollars from income and sales taxes.

Seems like a raw deal to us. Most Nebraskans we talk with don't think it's fair, either.

State lawmakers want to hear what you think about public school funding. The Nebraska Legislature's Education Committee is studying possible changes to funding of K-12 schools.

One of the Education Committee's upcoming stops will be in Crete. The meeting is set for 4 p.m., Monday, Oct. 7 at the Crete High School Auditorium, 1500 E. 15th Street in Crete.

We think it's worth our time time to show up and tell lawmakers to stop forcing rural school districts, like Dorchester's, to pay for larger school districts that have much more residential wealth and assets.

If they don't hear from us, we have no room to complain.

2 comments:

AnonymousSeptember 22, 2013 at 10:43 AM
Bravo. Ditto. Amen.
ReplyDelete
Replies
AnonymousOctober 1, 2013 at 4:23 PM
Dear Dorchester Times: This may be a good time/place to post the information I put together and provided for the blog, after your August post of the Crete Bond issue. I tried to address these issues in an effort to help the people of our district understand the levy formula, budgets, tax requests and valuations. I feel that some individuals may like to address their lawmakers as your story states, but if they don't totally understand the process, it makes it difficult. Thank you. Deb Spanyers
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Village Dweller checks all reader comments to determine if they are appropriate for print.

Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."