Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 1, 1990                   TAG: 9005010365
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

SCHOOLS LACK MONEY, AND TAX RATE IS CUT

One day I read in the paper that there is not enough money to pay our teachers, let alone to pay for the badly needed improvements in our school buildings or buy new buses for our children's safety. Then I read that our astute county supervisors, for obviously political reasons, approved a 2-cent reduction in the county's real-estate tax rate. Does this make any sense?

Do we in the county care about our children's education or not? Perhaps a better question is: Do our supervisors care about our children's education?

This tax reduction is estimated to cost the county $542,000 in lost revenue over 12 months. What a windfall that would be for our school system. The supervisors can say county taxes are going down, but what price are county families paying for that simple statement?

If I have to pay a little more in taxes to provide much-needed money to our schools, then I think it is a small price to pay. KAREN HANCOCK ROANOKE COUNTY