The future is now

W. TERRY SMITH
Editor

May 02, 2008 10:27 am

— We are talking about one penny on a $4 purchase, this proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase you have been asked to vote on Tuesday.
It is a tax increase, but it is on sales tax, which everyone pays. Visitors passing through Edgecombe County will contribute.
It will not affect the purchase of food, cars or homes.
It’s part of the agreement the counties reached with the General Assembly, which is picking up the tab for Medicaid. In exchange for the relief, counties have to give a half-cent of sales tax revenue to the state. To help make up the difference, lawmakers authorized counties to levy a quarter-cent sales tax increase if it can obtain voter approval.
(This way we will say the county raised taxes instead of “those slick cats in Raleigh.”)
The proposed quarter-cent hike is projected to generate $700,000 per year here. County Board of Commissioners Chairman Charlie Harrell says every dollar would go to education, either to the public schools or Edgecombe Community College.
Harrell has suggested using it to fund support staff, two technicians at each high school for the proposed laptop initiative.
This referendum, though, is not on the laptop initiative.
Many folks are making convincing arguments that Edgecombe cannot afford the laptop initiative. If that’s the case, our students will fall even further behind.
Like it or not, we are living in a world of technology. If do not have some computer skills, you may not be able to find a job.
That is why Carolinas Gateway Partnership, the economic development group for Edgecombe and Nash counties, Tarboro, Rocky Mount nd Nashville, came up with $10,000 – $5,000 for each county – to help promote a “yes” vote on the sales tax referendum.
That money has paid for newspaper ads and the “Vote for the Kids” postcards voters will receive any day now.
Dr. Steve Hoard, the Tarboro town councilman, has appeared on television (WHIG) and done the legwork to promote a “yes” vote.
Hoard loves his hometown and wants to see it improve, attract new business, new residents.
“I am convinced this is what we need,” he said. “If a child drops out of school in the ninth grade, he will not have computer skills he needs to survive in this world today.”
Unfortunately, Hoard has not be able to convince everybody to vote for the quarter-cent increase. You have not seen an endorsement from the Tarboro-Edgecombe Chamber of Commerce.
Towns and counties, businesses and ball clubs do not stay the same. You are either going forward or moving backward. That is why I am convinced the laptop initiative is the way to go.
I am amazed there are some against it. I think it would lower the dropout rate, retain teachers and improve test scores. It might add some excitement to learning that must be sorely missing from our classrooms if test scores are any indication.
It has worked in other places around the nation, including small, poor Greene County, N.C.
That’s why every parent and grandparent, aunt and uncle should make sure they vote “yes” on this question.
Prepare our students for the 21st century? The future is now.
W. Terry Smith is editor of The Daily Southerner.