Wednesday, November 15, 2000
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Wednesday, November 15, 2000 |
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Our school board has short-changed students Are the people of Fayette County mean-spirited tight wads? We have just passed a school bond issue which had been urged, and urged, and urged upon the school board on the pages of The Citizen for many, many months. At the last minute, the board screwed up enough courage to bring a bond proposal before the people, and the people approved it by a wide margin. Many will rejoice at this, not least those who feed at the public trough through the fees, contracts and other compensation payable by the school system. May they fully earn them! We should be spared for a while the jeremiads of all those who preferred doom and gloom scenarios to bringing a straight-forward bond issue before the people. If there's anybody mean-spirited around here, it's our school board, and I'd like to explain why. Suppose you have a Mom and Dad who, realizing theirs is a growing family, begin to look at their options for better housing. They sit around the kitchen table, one evening, and start a conversation. Being practical, they ask themselves, what can we afford for housing? Looking at their finances, they conclude they could comfortably spare $1,200 a month for a mortgage. We'll ignore taxes and insurance for the moment. Mom works for some company that offers to lend 5 percent mortgages to its employees. I use this example only because school systems can borrow 5 percent money on account of their tax exemption, and this will keep the example simpler. Looking up a mortgage table, Mom and Dad find that, for their $1,200 a month, they could finance a house worth $224,000 with a 30-year mortgage, or a house worth $113,000 with a 10-year mortgage. Same payment. The only features that are different are the value of the house and length of the payments. Not liking their children very much, Mom and Dad decide on the $113,000 house. They say, it'll be cramped a bit, there won't be a playroom or a swimming pool for the kids, they won't have separate rooms, which could make studying at home easier, and the neighborhood might not be all that great, but just think that after 10 years we'll be debt-free, and the kids will leave home anyway. Most people would probably consider these parents moronic. Not only will their quality of family life be much less than it could be for the 10 years coming up, but the $113,000 house will likely forever be worth half of what the other house would be. There is no question they could afford to keep paying the $1200 a month after 10 years. In fact, they might find it a lot easier then than now. But they have this mental block, or obsession, about being debt-free, and they are punishing their kids for it. Fortunately, most parents are a lot smarter. Unless they serve on our school board. Do you realize that, for the level of school bond taxes we're about to pay, we could borrow an extra $236 million or so? That would be good for an extra 15 schools beyond the four we've just approved. We don't have to borrow that much, but we could if we wanted to, and we wouldn't notice the difference until 10 years from now when school bond taxes, instead of going down drastically, would stay just like they will have been in years 2001 to 2009. Meanwhile, we'd enjoy wonderful school facilities for our Fayette County children, the ones that are already here, instead of enduring that miserly nonsense the school board has been dishing out. The old school board cannot leave town soon enough to suit me. Of course, they are, to a degree, the victims of the bad advice they've received from the staff and others they have chosen to counsel them. If the school board, new or old, thinks the people are mean-spirited and tight, they've got it wrong. We've been smart enough to say No to SPLOST, generous enough to say Yes to 10-year bonds that call for twice the taxes 30-year bonds would have required, and we're now ready for reasonable, normal board members prepared to run a fine school system with adequate facilities and sensible financing methods. I hope that, comes January, we can say that's what we've got. We need sensible long-term financial planning from this school board, with the emphasis on sensible. The old board's idea of long-term was to extend their proposed sales tax beyond five years and keep it going forever, an idea they sought to conceal but which fooled nobody. Many educators and parents in our county have complained, legitimately, about inadequate school facilities. The real reason our students have done without has been the ignorance, dumbness and gullibility of our school board in financial matters. This bond election we've just had is, in a way, a wake-up call. Our kids can't vote, and it's up to us, who can, to shake up the school board and pound some financial sense into it. I urge all parents who have substantial financial expertise, those who are accountants or have business administration degrees, to put pressure on the school board to develop sensible long-term financing plans, realizing that until now this board has flown off the seat of its pants with no advice or bad advice. Being elected to anything does not transform you into an all-knowing superman, although we have politicians who act that way. These board members need help. As an old TV commercial for a psychiatric institution used to say, if you don't seek help from us, seek help somewhere. The school board needs help. Let's make sure they get it. My last word on this is to thank the voters on behalf of the kids. I wish our school board and administrators loved these kids more. Claude Y. Paquin Fayetteville cypaquin@msn.com
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