The same thing as last time ... in fact, the only thing that has changed on the project list
was the amount of slush fund. All of the projects are the SAME. $10M to change boilers, $4.5M
to build sports facilities, etc. They did not learn a thing from the last election (despite spending
an undisclosed amount of OUR MONEY on telephone surveys after the election failed). Don't believe it ... check
our website from
last February's election.
We can see that project list still contains multi-millions of dollars
to build sports facilities, parking lots, and a lot of other things do not contribute to our students education
or safety. Do we really need a "synthetic turf Football/Soccer stadium" for $900,000 right now?
View complete project list.
The school district, and it's "financial advisors", Ehlers & Associates have put together a
chart and a calculator to tell you that it will only be a small amount ($90 on $150K property). What
they carefully state is that will be the additional amount you pay in *2013* - NOT the amount it will
be for the 16 YEARS that it is on the books - not by a longshot!!!
They have carefully reworked it so that they are paying NO PRINCIPAL in the year 2013 - and just PART of the interest to
keep the rate LOW - only recouping $656,000 the first year. By the time you get going, the rate jumps up to
almost $4.5 MILLION A YEAR. I wonder why they don't indicate how much of a tax increase THAT will be?
They won't tell you that number. Of course, by then it won't matter - you will have voted for it and be
stuck with the result! You can see this easily in the chart that
THEY GENERATED!
I suppose while we're at it, we should mention that it will not cost us $27 MILLION - That's
just the PRINCIPAL - the true cost with the interest we must pay on it is
$38 MILLION according to
their documents!
Let us not forget, we still have EXISTING BUILDING BONDS we're still paying at a rate of almost
$3 MILLION a year currently - that will run through 2022! And they still need MORE money?!!!
This is another distortion that both the school district employees, school board, and the "Vote Yes" group
(which interestingly consist of many school employees and sports group leaders) are trying to use to convince you
that they need more money. This is just simply a LIE to try to fool you.
They present charts like
this comparison chart
or
this one. What the cleverly fail to mention
are these are OPERATING LEVY comparisons - not CAPITAL BONDS - which is what this election is for. In other words, it doesn't matter
if this current bond passes or fails, it will not effect that $395/pupil number they like tossing around. They WILL however
attempt to effect that number NEXT YEAR, where according to their
school board notes
they will come back to us to authorize
ANOTHER TAX INCREASE in November 2013.
The National Center for Education Statistics compiles data on all public schools.
Here are a few of the past years, as well as the most recent. You see the latest at
their site.
When we compare these, we see that we have much larger class sizes, with less teachers AND less students.
There has been a steady INCREASE in funding (from local and government sources). While the number of teaching
jobs has suffered in these years, the number of administration and support staff has stayed virtually the same.
Click to see larger image.