Chesterfield will spend your money whether you watch or not...

The RTD has a new tool out...

The Virginia Department of Education collects data every two years to create a formula to determine how much money the state provides for local education.

The composite index is based on a locality's income levels, state tax revenue and real estate taxes, and school enrollment and local population, compared to the whole state. The result is an index that determines a locality's ability to pay for its schools. A low index indicates less ability to pay.

Here is a fascinating tidbit when you use this source plus a Chesterfield County Budget presentation.

In 2010, Chesterfield County has $35.6B in assessed property (that is what all The Chesterfield Taxpayers own in real property).  It had $9.1B in adjusted gross income (that is what all The Chesterfield Taxpayers make in a year).  Chesterfield County and the Chesterfield County Public Schools took $1.2B of what we earned or 13.5% and spent it.  Each of the 298,850 taxpayers that reside in Chesterfield, let their local government decide where $4,000 was spent.  If one had a $4,000 claim in an organization, wouldn't one pay more attention to decisions made on your behalf?  A simple family of four has a $16,000 claim.  The Taxpayer is asking you to stake your claim and get involved.

Now for the scary part...  The United States has a $12.4 Trillion Dollar debt bill that will come due for your children and grandchildren.  According to the RTD tool, all of Virginia's assessed property is equal to $1.15 Trillion.  It would take 10 Virginias to pay off our national debt. Virginia's annual adjusted gross income is $227B.  If every Virginian worked solely to pay off the national debt, it would take 54 years to pay it off.

The Taxpayer feels the noose tightening while others are still thinking of it as a brand new tie.

UPDATE: Here is link to a map that explains reverting back to the Dept. of Education  formula for state funding.