Posted by
Daniel A. Myers on Friday, January 25, 2008 7:55:12 AM
Listen Up Tennessee! Your Safety is being sacrificed for "better education." It was the biggest tag line for voting YES in allowing the Lottery to come to Tennessee. By having the lottery, the state will be able to generate more money for our education system. Well, I don't know about your area, but in Anderson County it's not doing quite that. In the City of Clinton, voters will go tomorrow to vote on whether or not they think we should turn the city school system over to county control, because the city is unable to fund them properly. Evidently, not only is the lottery not helping but neither is the cigarette tax increase that will becoming to Clinton. According to State Estimates by 2009 the City of Clinton will have over half a million dollars to use for schools and schools only. Now, let's look at this for just one moment. We have a school board in our city who asks for more money before spending what they got, and yet it's their fault? It doesn't make sense for us to blame the school board for asking for more money, when its the City who has to do the final issuing. So...now whose at fault?
I bet your wondering where Safety is sacrificed huh? Well, look at what I just said just moments ago. All the money we get from increased cigarette tax MUST go to schools. BEP money cannot go anywhere else except to schools and the school system. What's wrong with that? Well Anderson County has a problem with criminality right now. We are unable to control crime effectively, mainly because we don't have the man power to do so. Why not? Our Sheriff's Department is asking for more money to raise our officer's pay, as well as help fund for more officer's. There are times when there may be just 1 or 2 patrol cars on duty at a time. This is not safety. We are unable to fund them with money from the lottery, or BEP money because state law requires that go to Education. At this time, for some reason, we are unable to afford to keep our citizens safe, because we have limits on what we can use the money for. A big argument is:
"If we didn't specify that the money goes towards schools, then our Education would decrease as a result."
Sounds convincing, sort of. Except for the big fact that there are schools in Anderson County that, even with the appropriate funds cant meet state expectations, nor can they do so when extra funds are given. So why not take the extra money we are now getting and use it for safety? Once again, we aren't allowed. So, in the meantime our officials are forced to sacrifice our safety for schools. My opinion is use the money we are forced to give to schools and give it to them, but the extra money we throw their way should be used for more officers. This is an issue everyone should check in their county and/or community. It has got many voters in my area on their feet and curious. It's time we set our priorities straight. What good is education, if the students aren't safe to get one?