Special Election in March Could Give City of Davenport Economic Boost
Greg Geistkemper
Issue date: 12/4/08 Section: News
On November 19 Davenport city alderman who represents the nearly 100,000 citizens in the city of Davenport voted to allow those 100,000 citizens to decide the fate of the extremely controversial Promise scholarship program. The city council members voted eight to two to allow the promise program to be placed on the special election docket held in March. With so much controversy surrounding the logistics of the Promise the next three months aim to be saturated with intense debate on whether or not such legislation backed by tax dollars is really the right thing to do. But what exactly is the Promise scholarship program?
The purposed local legislation entitled the Promise is an economic program aimed at bringing families to Davenport. The Promise program offers exactly what is says, it promises any student who attends school in the Davenport school district money to put forth towards their college education upon completing high school or receiving a GED.
However, there are requirements that each student has to abide by in order to receive this incentive. Students must maintain "good standing" throughout their high school schooling, they must complete 400 hours of community service and, student must attend a trade school, two year or, four year institution in order to receive funding.
The Promise program was based off of a similar program operating in the City of Kalamazoo, MI. Previous to Kalamazoo's implementation of their own Promise program their city was suffering from severe economic hardships in terms of shrinking population and emigration of employers. Since the implementation of Kalamazoo's Promise program city officials have seen a steady increase in both population and employers which seems to be directly related to the Promise program.
The Promise program was chosen by the city officials because Davenport faces the same economic hardships that Kalamazoo faced. However, unlike the city of Kalamazoo's Promise plan which was financially backed by private donors, Davenport's purposed Promise program would be financially backed by the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST), a tax which is already used for capital improvements such as building parks as well as used to help with the cost in funding emergency services.
The purposed local legislation entitled the Promise is an economic program aimed at bringing families to Davenport. The Promise program offers exactly what is says, it promises any student who attends school in the Davenport school district money to put forth towards their college education upon completing high school or receiving a GED.
However, there are requirements that each student has to abide by in order to receive this incentive. Students must maintain "good standing" throughout their high school schooling, they must complete 400 hours of community service and, student must attend a trade school, two year or, four year institution in order to receive funding.
The Promise program was based off of a similar program operating in the City of Kalamazoo, MI. Previous to Kalamazoo's implementation of their own Promise program their city was suffering from severe economic hardships in terms of shrinking population and emigration of employers. Since the implementation of Kalamazoo's Promise program city officials have seen a steady increase in both population and employers which seems to be directly related to the Promise program.
The Promise program was chosen by the city officials because Davenport faces the same economic hardships that Kalamazoo faced. However, unlike the city of Kalamazoo's Promise plan which was financially backed by private donors, Davenport's purposed Promise program would be financially backed by the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST), a tax which is already used for capital improvements such as building parks as well as used to help with the cost in funding emergency services.
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