The School Board last week voted to put its $106M bond measure on June’s ballot. This one measure actually contains two distinct, equally significant issues.
The Board understands no one is going to publicly come out and argue against keeping our School District a safe and healthy place to learn. But what about our own small community’s financial health?
Two-Question Quandary
Bond supporters will suggest that there is only one important issue at hand: Fixing our schools. There is an equally important question to consider, one that would impact, not only our School District but our whole community’s future for a long time: The price we will have to pay for upgrading our schools.
The two-question-one-vote scenario is purposely written into the ballot measure. The first part is written to persuade voters to go along with the second part, dealing with how to afford it.
The question of fixing our schools has been polled to death, answered each time with a resounding yes. The second question, though, on the funding, is not so well defined.
Clearly, Unclear
The figure $106M is clearly given in the bond’s ballot measure. No tax rate, however, is given in the ballot resolution. It only states that it will stay within the legal limits of $60 maximum for each $100K of each parcel’s assessed valuation.
Voting Only on the Resolution
The $48 figure has been bantered about and was even used in a mid-January telephone poll. The $48 is mentioned in the ballot’s supporting explanation, but the community is voting only on the measure’s legally binding 75-word resolution, not the later explanation. Legally, if the Board’s tax measure is passed, the actual tax rate could be as much as $60 per $100K, and not the aforementioned $48.
Yes and No?
Do we, as a community, want to upgrade our facilities? Yes. A vast majority of the community has indicated they want this to happen soon. The Board’s ballot measure asks whether you want to pay for it their way.
By upgrading our facilities, do you want to put our community over a quarter-billion dollars in total debt? Do you want to pass the biggest bond ever in our city’s history?
The Board and supporters of the bond measure are counting on a decade’s lack of proper District maintenance to propel parents to the polls and exceed the general public’s reluctance of going a quarter-billion dollars in debt, which, by the way, will be the deepest debt our city has ever incurred.
Voter Quandary
What do you do if you want to fix our schools but do not want to pay for it this way and put our community into a quarter-billion dollars debt? Do you sheepishly submit and go along with the Board’s proposed tax increases, with all its future assumptions and built-in risks?
Voters will get to cast only one vote on both, combined issues facing our community. And there’s the problem: One vote, “yea or nay,” will count for both issues in the measure.
Not an Either/Or Question
Nothing wrong with wanting to fix up our schools and yet not wanting to put our community over $250M in debt. It’s not either/or. Do you vote yes because you want to upgrade the District’s infrastructure and keep our schools safe and looking nice? Do you give in and vote yes even though, you think the bond's size is too large for our community's current resources?
Or do you wait and quietly vote no against the Board’s proposed tax measure, thereby, sending its members a clear message that you want a smaller, simpler, bond measure put on next November’s ballot?
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
