D303. I read that it is a CAB, not sure if that automatically makes it a postponed payment. I think I tossed the original literature that stated all these details. :( A big argument by the people who oppose this is that all this does is upgrade buildings, and apparently our test scores have rapidly been falling, so focusing on quality education over aesthetically pleasing buildings should be the priority, which I 100% agree with. Here are a few sites, which may or may not be worth looking at, I didn't find the info I was interested in there other than some stats on how it will ultimately increase our taxes and how badly our test scores have fallen. http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/elections/1508838,District-303-referendum_el040209.article http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=283331 http://www.kcchronicle.com/articles/2009/03/16/r_9f3wbsuesnt4ysuilrfw/index.xml This is the site for citizens against this bill. I believe what they state may be out of date, however. They do state that voting the measure down allows our taxes to go down, while voting the measure in ensures it will not go down and in fact there is no guarantee it won't go up due to these bonds (but this could be based on one of the old recommendations that isn't the one actually on the referendum since the site is out of date), . The download PPT has a lot of information on it I am not sure I totally understand, but maybe you would. http://www.cfar303.org/ I would really like to better understand what exactly is happening with these bonds if you can find anything out. I really appreciate the offer!

Hi breenthumb, Rumour has it that there are other insurance companies. Granted, there are fewer than there used to be, as they, like most corporations, hate competition on their own level and will go to great lengths to get rid of competitors. Some time ago I had a personal tax-deferred retirement account with a stockbrokerage, which had incurred no administration cost for years, as it had been grandfathered that way when that company took over another company. When I came to the age where I had to reverse it from an account into which I paid in, into one into which I could no longer pay in, but must withdraw a certain percentage annually, which increases from about 7% at age 71 to 20% at age 90 and beyond, a problem arose. They said that there would be an annual administration fee, and my claim that it was a continuation/reversal of a fee-free account that I'd had with them for years fell on quite deaf ears. So ... I did some checking with some other agencies, and came back to report that, since such and such a company and so and so company would agree to carry my account without an administration fee, I was considereing transferring my account ... they seemed to have a change of heart, for it appeared that they, too, could carry that account without an admin. fee. Which they've done for about 10 years, now: nice to have a little skill and effort save one well over $1,000., on occasion, right? I didn't feel it necessary to include in my report the fact that I would be somewhat less inclined to use the other companies than the one that I had been with for years ... as Grandma used to say, "One should tell the truth ... but there's no reason that one should blab and tell all that one knows". So ... ... if you don't, or haven't owed money for several recent years in several locations/circumstances ... ... they figure that your trustworthiness is suspect, do they? As I've lived in over 20 locations in my 79 years (as I discovered when they asked over on KT in how many places one had lived), I've never owned a home ... ... so never had a mortgage. As I live fairly frugally, I've had few loans. Which situation is aided by the fact that I tend to buy old cars and drive them into the ground, which usually takes 5 - 7 years ... which enables me to buy them for cash (having added a bit to emergency funds from time to time, and drawing on it to make those smallish purchases). When I have substantial debt and must pay quite a lot of interest every month, it seems to me that, since much of our debt is usually non-deductible, if I have to pay $100. monthly in interest, and make $10.00 per hour, after-tax income ... that means that I work 10 hours/month for someone else, the holder of my loan(s). I'd rather wait until I can afford to pay cash ... and pay myself, instead. Learning how money works is an interesting hobby ... that pays well ... and I hope that you're developing increasing shrewdness at managiong your income and assets effectively: to benefit you rather than the other guys (with the exception of worthy charities). Hope you're part way into a happy weekend. One nice thing about retirement is ... that every day is weekend. A nice benefit of learning skillful management of money may well be/quite likely will be ... early retirement (at your choice, not because your company downsizes when you're about 50 ... leaving you out in the cold). ole joyful P.S. I could qualify, as I've had a Line of Credit, usually unused, for about 10 years, and have had a credit (actually "debt") card for several years, which I use infrequently. I recently took on another, which offered 1.9% on transferred balances for most of this year, figuring that I'd buy some stock using the original card, then transfer the balance, as the bank, which had usually charged me bank prime on my loans (fully secured), they recently said that prime was 3.5% ... but they needed a 1.5% surcharge, to total 5%. Now, however, they say that the interest on my Line of Credit will be 2.25% ... so I'll take that, instead of jockeying on credit cards - not a good idea to shift from one horse to another while crossing a stream, I figure. Most cards charge full rate (often 18% on mainline cards: 28% or so on store-issued cards) from the date of the advance until it is paid in full, and I'd not be sure how long it would take to transfer to the second card. o j

DH said the other day, "We'll pay for it in our taxes or we'll pay in the ER" which is true. I don't mind at all paying taxes to cover more american's health care costs...but I do mind paying taxes to fund thee deaths of thousands of our youth in wars we shouldn't be fighting. My biggest issue with this debacle is that it's not health care reform (call it that all you want but it's not!) It's just a screw around issue with insurance companies that obviously isn't working terribly well for most. I like parts of it, but the ability to hop prices up the day after the bill passed should have been addressed if our congress wouldn't have tried to rush this through. Goldie shouldn't have to "win"...it should have been a clear mandate to be enforced immediately. This staggered crap just means that when we have a new administration, and we will, it will be available for debate and for new laws to remove all that this bill might have done good. Health care reform though was desperately needed. At every hospital we visited we saw this need. Families that weren't devistated by costs so much as they were by lack of a good system of diagnosis. No standard of care from state to state, no central records keeping....transfering records from hospital to hospital is a nightmare! And that pile of lost paperwork (they forgot to include an early bloodwork result in our package and that carried over from hospital to hospital because we were copying the original package with the forgotten piece). that one little slip was the answer to our son's pain taken within the first month of his life, he suffered for three years because the other doctors didn't see that one piece. And this is not the first case of a medical clue gone astray. So many things aren't covered, so many issues of health care and drug costs that were swept under the table....terrible stuff. And as to the life expectancy issue.....life style does come into play there. I know that at all of the hospitals we went to for rare diseases, the beds were full of children from other countries. Most paid cash to get to America for the quality care of someone who actually specialized in their condition. At Johns Hopkins half or more (it varied) of the children in the program we were in were from other countries, including Canada, Japan, Quatar, Mexico, England and Germany. They paid cash to get in because it was the best program in the world. America is tops in many many areas of the medical world, but getting the kids or adults who need the special care to the specialist facility is an exercise in futility most often. My frustration shows :) I know that many know what real medical trials are....and I can easily say I'd probably view the insurance reform differently if I hadn't experienced what we did. But my experiences led me to see that this is all a silly joke without addressing the real issues that needed to be addressed.

My house is taxed at 5.3% of the assessed value, which is 35% of the estimated market value. The market value is about 183k which is probably pretty close, within 5k or so. So about 1.9-2.0% of market value. About 60% of the tax is for school; another 10% is specifically for mental illness, mental retardation & developmentally disabled services; another 5.6% for children's services; 1.6% for parks & zoo; 1% for seniors; 5.3% for libraries; & the rest is divided between city, township, & county. Property tax consumes a full 10% of my take-home pay. The fairly quiet (except for the freight trains and jets), clean, conveniently located neighborhood is worth it. I also pay city (2%) and state income tax, and 6.5% sales tax. I really don't remember which tax the trash collection, street maintenance, police & fire etc derive from, but the city provides all. Water is billed separately. Services are really quite good, but streets have deteriorated a bit the past 2 years as the city has had to rip out existing sidewalk curb cuts at all intersections and redo them--someone sued on account of the ADA, said they were too steep, and must have at all intersections. So now we have very gentle wheelchair slopes at intersections without sidewalks, and at the bottoms of steep hills (some of those zigzag to produce the correct grade, and consumed large chunks of front yard), and on residential streets that have steep driveway cuts every 30 feet---and potholes in the streets. They tell us they will likely have to ask for more tax for the schools. Otherwise they might have to lay off the weight room attendents and ask the various coaches to teach a class or two. Or drop the yearbook class for an english credit where your grade depends on your writing skill, rather than on how many ads you sell--