A letter to the editor in this week's paper asks whether property tax millage increases being considered by both local school boards are justified.

Good question.

Now if we only could get a good answer.

Administrators and school board members in both districts will tell you that tax hikes are absolutely necessary. They'll talk about expenditures that are "beyond their control." They'll talk about the pension contribution rate that is rapidly increasing by leaps and bounds. They'll talk about cyber school costs and capital improvements.

Out of 18 local school board members, however, only one -- Northgate's David Natale -- said publicly to administrators, "Find a way to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars from the proposed budget." Only one -- Avbonworth's Jeff Schmid -- said, "We have enough money, we don't need this."

Frankly, that type of perspective needs to spread among school board members.

I have long been amused by school board members who vote for for contracts that give salary increases and nice benefit packages, then say that personnel costs are "beyond their control."

In a perfect world everyone would make lots of money and have weeks of vacation and every conceivable type of insurance benefit.

This isn't a perfect world.

As the owner of a small business, I resent having to pay more so that government employees can have salaries and benefits that I can't afford to give my own employees. Business owners throughout the country are laying off workers and requiring the remaining employees to work more, contribute more to their benefit packages.

But it's not just about personnel costs -- although that is the lion's share of every school and municipal budget. It's about vision. It's about officials knowing years in advance about increasing budgetary demands, and failing to come up with a long-term -- radical if necessary -- plan to address those demands that does not involve falling back on tax increases.

Act 1, which was supposed to protect taxpayers from a lack of vision and intestinal fortitude among officials, has proven to be a joke. What good is requiring taxpayer approval of millage increases if the state grants exceptions? Any financial manager who can't work the numbers to show that the school district's need for a tax increase falls into one of the many exception categories probably shouldn't have a job.

Are the tax increases justified?

I guess it depends on who you ask. The people who will be making the decisions for all of us will tell you, "Yes!" The rest of the taxpayers may not be so sure