At the South Dayton Democratic Club candidates forum, I sat and listened to multiple democratic candidates rail against school vouchers, charter schools and public dollars being funneled away from our public education system. Oh, and yeah, they are still questioning why our school funding formula is still unconstitutional since 1999.

So why is the Dayton City Commission trying to pull a fast one on the poorest tax payers in the region- telling them to continue to tax their income an extra .25% to fund “safety and the pre-school promise” claiming it “won’t raise taxes” and getting away with it?

Let’s get real. The “Pre-school Promise” organization is yet another quasi-governmental organization being handed public dollars to redistribute to private businesses. And, while they support these districts: Dayton, Huber Heights, Jefferson Twp., Kettering, Mad River, Northridge, Trotwood-Madison, West Carrollton- ONLY DAYTON TAXPAYERS PAY.

If that wasn’t enough to guarantee your no vote, I’ll add some interesting facts for you to also consider. Dayton Public Schools has an amazing pre-school program already, it’s “5 Star” all the way. Any Dayton resident who wants to send their kid to a 5 Star rated pre-school can do it any day of the week. Most of the pre-schools that the “pre-school promise” gives away your tax dollars to, are NOT 5 star pre-schools- ie- they are not as good as the DPS offering.

Secondly, if DPS was given this money directly, there would be no additional overhead of Ms. Robyn Lightcap ($131,545 in 2023) and the rest of her crew hiding out in another quasi-governmental slush fund- the Educational Service Center, where retired school administrators go to double-dip.

With every additional “organization” you have overhead- a website, accounting, office support, tech, and with this org- a ton of money on advertising. How does this help our kids? How does having 61 “pre-schools” (glorified day cares) beat having one run by professional educators- with 28 existing buildings across the city- which could use the money for transportation, expanding hours, and a continuation of a relationship with families in our community somehow make better sense? It doesn’t.

The “Pre-school Promise” which gets half of issue 6 revenue, is yet another way for tax dollars to go into the pockets of the folks who support our culture of corruption. I’m not going to waste my time turning over all the stones to do what a semi-competent news organization would be able to uncover in just a few weeks, but trust me, handing tax dollars to private, unregulated businesses is never a good idea.

By tying the other half of the revenue from Issue 6 to public safety, road repairs and a tiny housing initiative, you are buying into the BS that we don’t have the money to do the things our government is supposed to do- while we can find $10M to pump into the arcade (again) or donate money to a billionaires dreams of building flying electric taxis.

The poor of Dayton are being told- “but we collect a majority of the money from people who live outside the city, but work in the city” so you are getting more than what you put in. In case you didn’t notice- except for the hospitals and a few other businesses- what’s left of our office workforce is now working from home eschewing a trip to an office in Downtown Dayton. We’re building hotels, hassling AirBnB owners, and subsidizing housing projects left, right and center again- with the poor people being able to contribute more of their shrinking income because we have way too many governmental organizations in Montgomery County in the first place.

If it wasn’t already really late in the day, I’d be looking at who is funding the robo-calls and texts I’m getting- the multiple mailings, etc. and how much money they are spending to get this bad tax bill to stay in operation. Trust me, they are spending more than I’m spending on my congressional primary for good reason- come fall, and the presidential election, it may not pass.

What’s even more concerning is that they haven’t put a charter amendment on the ballot to fix their illegal petitions that they’ve been using for decades- the ones that have helped them keep folks off the ballot. The BOE ruled last year, that the lack of charter language to include the date on the petitions makes their clause about date of signing invalid. Those needed to be fixed before either the next scheduled election in March of 2025, or before we see Mims, Shaw or Joseph indicted for their parts in the failed FBI “Culture of Corruption” investigation that only prosecuted Black men.

I urge you to put on your thinking cap about why Dayton should be the ONLY municipality taxed to support the “Pre-school Promise” – why the other 7 cities get a free ride. How a woman without a PhD in education- was making what Dr. Lawrence was getting paid as Interim Superintendent of DPS is worthy of your charity? How this is supposed to help Dayton Public Schools perform better? Considering that our new superintendent has done more in 6 months to improve test scores than Dr. Lolli did in 6 years.

And if you need a final nail to hang this quasi-governmental cesspool on the cross of bad ideas- here’s a little factoid from DPS when asked how much their 5 star pre-schools get from this tax:

“Preschool Promise does not pay DPS for enrolling students in preschool programs. However, they do pay fees on behalf of parents of out-of-district students. This fiscal year, the District received $1,000 in total from Preschool Promise.”

DPS public information office, 7 Mar 2024

So, people of Dayton pay an extra .25% of their income to subsidize parents who don’t live in the district to send their kids to our free pre-schools.

Isn’t that fresh?