And with the price of diesel fuel, energy, food, and goods the cost of opening the doors or sending a band on 8 buses and a semi to a football game got more expensive. Feeding your band before a game or contest this year will be significantly more expensive than last year due to food costs. Are you raising your band fees to cover? Are you raising your fees to pay a higher salary to your Guard instructor and marching techs since we are talking about paying people what you think they are worth? If so you just double whammied your parents who are paying higher property taxes and higher band fees! If you aren’t raising your fees then something is getting cut because that $500 band fee will go a much shorter distance than it did two years ago.

You are correct in more dollars coming in because of appraisal values. You forgot to then balance that with the incredible rise in costs of goods and services which really means there isn’t extra money there. In fact, when diesel prices hit $8 bucks a gallon this August expect some schools to start shutting down some travel.

My suggestion is stop complaining about salaries before there is a massive backlash from parents who stop supporting and participating in our activity.