It’s strange, but true, per the Floyd County Times article, “May Valley group seeks Martin annexation records.”

Apparently, teachers at May Valley Elementary School are upset because they have to pay an occupational tax on their salaries but argue the school where they work does not get any services for those taxes from Martin City, the taxing authority. Furthermore, the teachers are upset that Martin City has raised those taxes twice since 2007 and reportedly failed to comply with an earlier open records request for information.

This teacher anti-tax protest certainly relates in a very interesting way to taxpayers in general who are upset about things like schools that chronically don’t do a very good job of getting kids ready for college and careers.

My point: every taxpayer deserves performance for their valuable tax dollars. And, taxpayers deserve a transparent and open way to determine how those tax dollars actually are performing.

When public officials don’t produce performance and accounting, taxpayer protest is very justified. That is true whether it’s general taxpayers or even teachers who are doing the questioning.

And, public officials must be accountable for tax dollars, whether we are talking about city administrators or public school educators.