If you live in Colquitt County and are 65 years or older, please read this entire letter.

If you read the opinion page in the Moultrie Observer, you probably read the letter from Thomas Tire Co. in Moultrie. If not, please allow me to advise you.

Thomas Tire had been stocking tires for our school buses, as low bidder, for  several years. These Good Year tires exceeded the state’s requirements for school buses.

In 2019, our school system solicited bids again for the tires from Thomas Tire and several other tire dealers. The school bus shop then stopped purchasing tires from Thomas Tire without any notification. The contract was awarded to a dealer in Albany. Problem is, that dealer was not the low bidder!

So the bus shop is now paying $10 more per tire for a lesser tire. In addition, the Albany dealer is charging $14 for each tire repair. Thomas Tire charged nothing — zero — for tire repairs. So how will this work? Will a bus needing a new tire be out of service waiting for them to bring a tire from Albany? If a tire needs a repair, will the bus be out of service while the Albany company comes to pick it up, takes it back to Albany to repair, then bring it back to Moultrie? Thomas Tire is no more than a quarter mile from our bus shop! Don’t we have to award contracts to the lowest bidder who meets specifications? Aren’t we wasting tax money?

Speaking of wasting tax money, about three years ago, the school board offered the voters a referendum asking for an additional one cent local option sales tax (ESPLOST) for education. They asked for approval to spend SOME of that tax money on an enclosed football practice field. It narrowly passed. In the end, we got that field, another practice field, several coaches’ offices, and a lunchroom and kitchen for the football team. SOME money turned out to be roughly $12 million, or just about one-half of the amount the new tax would ever collect. Are we wasting tax money?

Then consider these following points. Slightly fewer than 700 people in Colquitt County hold G.A.T.E. cards which exempts all local and state sales taxes (including all school sales taxes)  on purchases made with the cards. How much income is the school board losing here?

I wonder how many people in our county hold EBT cards. which exempts all sales taxes on purchases made with these cards. These card holders, and all other adults who do not own real property such as land and homes, also do not pay school property taxes. So all these residents of the county provide little or no financial support for the schools.

Now consider the senior citizens in our county. Many of these citizens, often both husband and wife, worked very hard for thirty years to pay off a loan so they could own their own home. Now, in retirement, these hard workers are being penalized for their effort. Many of them are living on a fraction of their former incomes and are struggling to keep their heads above water, so to speak. This group pays all sales taxes and still pays school property taxes. No exemptions or breaks! Many are in their 70s and 80s and have had no children in the school system for thirty or more years.

It is time for the Colquitt County Board of Education to stop requiring seniors to take up other people’s slack. It is time to exempt seniors, age 65 and over, from paying school property taxes!    

I request and urge you to join me at the next school board meeting on January 27, 2020, ( next Monday) at 6:00 p.m.. Together we will request the board to instruct our state representative, Mr. Watson, to submit a timely request to the legislature, during the current session, to authorize our school board to present an opportunity for our citizens to vote on and decide this issue during 2020. It is the same process which allowed us to vote on the aforementioned ESPLOST.

I look forward to seeing all of you next Monday!

Bruce Leigh

Moultrie