How does a school property tax increase just happen without it being voted on and passed by the community?
The amount set a new record for abuse cases against school districts in Oklahoma, topping a $5-million settlement reached by Kingfisher Public Schools in 2023. […] the district paid $500,000 from the school’s general fund toward the settlement, while their liability insurance paid $1 million.
Sounds like they were under-insured. The Catholic Church got away with it by having their insurance pay everything, and then declaring bankruptcy whenever someone went against the Church’s actual assets.
Which is such bullshit because I remember reading in the early 2000s that the Catholic Church had over $4 trillion in assets, they could afford to settle all of their claims for a fraction of that, a very small fraction of that, less than 1% of that.
Some coach diddles kids and the families and kids have to pay for it through insane tax hikes and less school funding? In what world does that make sense?
They already put the coach in prison for 15 years and probation for 25 years after that. Why punish the local community too? Yes, the families should be made whole, but not at the expense of objectively innocent tax payers and schoolchildren.
In a community that’s small, there is no way many of these same families and homeowners weren’t aware of that predator.
The community enabled him and now the community has to pay for that choice.
What’s your alternative solution?
That’s a very judgmental take… you have insider knowledge or are talking you arse out? Man I wish that kind of shit never happen in my village because I’d be bundled with other peasants I might have seen at the baker for a brief 30 seconds while fetching bread once over 8 years and suddenly I would be enabling someone…
“…the alleged abuses were allowed to continue for years…”
If you’ve lived in a small town than you know that word of this was in many households that stayed silent.
That’s just how small rural towns in America work on issues of abuse.
If you believe this was a completely contained secret, then I have a bridge to sell you.
But yes, many people who are completely innocent will be impacted. What’s your alternative solution?
Here’s the full quote:
Not only has the case caused outrage among the community, who discovered that the alleged abuses were allowed to continue for years, but it is now going to weigh financially on their shoulders.
It’s clearly saying that the community did not know about the abuses and that the administration was allowing the abuses to continue for years.
Just asserting they know without citing evidence or precedent is not enough to convince me. Keeping up appearances with outsiders is how these predators survive.
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The families that sued him and settled for $7.5M were from the community. Did they enable him? What about the children that attend the same school and will now have less funding for their education? Did they enable him? Do they deserve to partake in the punishment?
Make the people that did the offense pay for it.
So your proposal is to completely scrap how American liability laws work and create something new?
I don’t think that would be all bad, definitely ambitious.
What about the the current victims? How should they receive their restitution in the meantime?
Wonder how many complaints were ignored before he actually got charged. Probably would have been much cheaper to act the first time, before he had dozens of victims for them to compensate.
I’m shocked that it wasn’t a cop.
They need $7,500 per resident and, according to the article, they intend to raise that money over three years. I don’t know what their property values are like but if I assume an average house price of $300k, a current tax rate of 2%, and three people per house then they’re currently getting $6,000 in property taxes per person over three years (which they need to spend on other things) and so an enormous tax increase really is necessary.
(I’m neglecting non-residential property tax payers. A tiny town like this probably doesn’t have many.)
At this point I’d move across county lines to somewhere nearby that won’t have double the property tax rate.
You’d have to find someone to buy your house, which will probably be difficult, seeing as there’s a massive property tax increase heading that way.
Burn it down then.
