New Poll!
I’ll be presenting the results from the Jail poll; but here’s a poll on school funding. Enjoy!
Note, for those of you reading this over e-mail or RSS feed, you’ll need to go to the site to vote.
The Board of Education is asking for $400 million in construction funding over the next 5 years. That’s 4 times as much as was approved in the 2004 bond. Where should the next round of funds come from?
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7 responses so far ↓
1 harold Smith // Apr 8, 2007 at 7:28 pm
How much funds will be available for school construction if Cabarrus County does not participate in Kannapolis City TIF bonds?
Something to think about!
Harold Smith
2 Justin Thibault // Apr 9, 2007 at 7:13 am
If they do or if they don’t participate - there won’t be enough available without some sort of borrowing.
The NCRC will double Kannapolis’ tax base, and the surrounding growth could double it again - if the infrastructure is done right. That will take a little time; but I wouldn’t expect someone who opposed the 2004 school bond to understand about investing in the future.
Also, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. You should really consider offering your readers that ability to comment - as long as you’re not afraid of what they have to say!
3 Harold Smith // Apr 9, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Justin,
i opposed the school bond because I believed it was the wrong solution. I recommended increasing the tax rate to build schools as they were needed because I believed the bond solution was short sighted. I even suggested a seperate rate devoted to school construction.
I was right!
I continue to oppose a school bond. That is why the county needs the tax revenue from the NCRC. The county finally get an industrial tax base and our leaders want to go in debt “up to our eyeballs”
It is a “distorted idea”.
Harold Smith
4 Justin Thibault // Apr 9, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Really? Your plan was better than the 2004 bond? Answer me this, how many more kids would be in leaky trailers under the so-called “Pay-As-You-Go” plan?
Kinda funny how that “plan” just disappeared after the bond! If I remember right, it involved higher taxes and new schools not getting built until 4-5 years from NOW…even though most of the schools from the 2004 bond will be completed in the next year or two.
Having been on the bond campaign, I can tell you that the intent of those bonds were to catch up to meet the needs then. We knew there would be future needs.
The problem was that when your friends (Privette, Suggs, et. al.) ran the County Commission - there was little control of residential growth. It wasn’t until after Richard Suggs was crushed as an incumbent by a 2-to-1 margin in a Primary that the County turned around that trend. Between 1999 and 2004, the developers got whatever they wanted and it’s now that “We The People” are paying the price.
With or without the TIF, taxes are going up to pay for the borrowing binge that went on before 2004. Unlike the bonds - these were not approved by the voters and unlike the TIF - there was no plan to pay for it.
Sorry, Harold - as usual - the facts just aren’t on your side.
5 Harold Smith // Apr 10, 2007 at 12:25 am
Justin,
I believe it is a “distorted idea” to think that you can continue to borrow and go in debt for 20 years and then repeat that cycle every 3 or 4 years. I believe that practice is financially unsound. I believed that in 2004. I believe that today and I will believe tomorrow.
On April 12, 2004 I posted on my website an “Open letter to the Committee on Education Capital Planning and Financing”. In that letter I gave a detailed analysis of the capital needs as presented by the school board in their 5 year plan. I presented a detail plan to meet those needs according to their timetable without borrowing money. It was a “pay as you go plan”. Along with setting priorities, using facility fees, avoiding interest expense, I stated, “A pay as you go plan would establish a special school tax of 6 cents, 8 cents, or 10 cents each year. This would set aside $7.8 million, $10.4 million or $13 million, respectively, for school construction.” I go to state that the 5 year plan would need to be updated each year.
My opposition to the school bond was that the money borrowed would not meet the school construction needs for 20 years to match the payback period.
I was right!
I posted several articles under a section I titled “The school debate” which was not archived on my website. However, I have printed copies if anyone on the school board wants to read them. I find them very prophetic under our current school situation.
It is not too late for the County Commissioners to take corrective action.
Hopefully, common sense will prevail. Until then, I will keep hammering away at my message begging for sound financial decisions. Unfortunately, our culture is blind to the dangers of excessive debt!
And I don’t expect you to see the dangers either. One thing for sure is that debt enslaves and limits your options for the future.
The truth is on my side!
Harold Smith
6 Justin Thibault // Apr 10, 2007 at 6:28 am
Well, we can tell where your priorities are. You don’t archive the school funding plan where you raise taxes by 10 cents on the $100 valuation; but you keep a section on the “Juba Scandal” that was soundly disproven. Yet, you keep that up. You also keep up the non-sense about John Day’s “slush fund” - even though you haven’t gotten around to proving it.
Quite frankly, I’m glad that the BOC ignored your proposal; because you have a serious problem with the truth. You only deal with the data that support your opinion at any given moment. For instance, you rail against debt here; but have no problem when your friends get into it.
Let’s consider for a moment that we did your 10 cents plan. If we started in 2005, we would only have enough now to start the new High School in Harrisburg - the construction schedule for all of the other project to be completed in the next year or two wouldn’t even start until 3 to 5 years from now. I’m sure your friends in Odell would be upset to be dealing with their dilapidated school building for 5 extra years.
What you won’t admit is when your friends who were running the BOC were hostile to public education they purposefully withheld school construction projects and spent more than they took in to give the illusion of low taxes. In FY2005 (2004-2005), they overspent the budget so badly as to contribute 2.5 cents to the 10 cent tax increase the following year.
So, let’s say that we followed your plan for a 10 cent increase in lieu of the bond. That means that we would not have had to pay the 3.9 cents to pay for the bond. According to the FY2006 Budget message, 3.9 cents was what was needed to cover the expenses from the 2004 bond - the rest was to make up for shortfalls in previous budgets In 2005, (for FY2006) every household in Cabarrus County would have seen a 16.1 cent increase in their taxes (10 cents for your plan + 6.1 cent to cover shortfalls in the FY2006 budget) AND the schools would have been built years later.
In 2005, you and others criticized 10 cents; but never bothered to produce cuts substantial enough to avoid a tax increase. That tax increase was the result of mismangement by Cabarrus Taxpayers’ Association-backed board members AKA The Cabarrus Youth Tax
I don’t disagree that debt should be avoided, but when you have a constitutional mandate to provide adequate schools and a Commission that all but ignored it for 5 years - your options get limited.
I agree that we should be setting aside monies for future school construction. Under the current majority, the Adequate Factilities fees cover 2/3 of school construction - which is a step in the right direction. But we still have to provide schools for the thousands of new homes that your friends let ride in without any objection from 1998-2005 - and that’s going to cost us for a long time.
7 The View From The Cheap Seats » The Truth v. Harold Smith XVII: Formidable Opponent - Part 2 // Apr 10, 2007 at 7:15 am
[...] Harold Smith often likes to get into “debates” on his website - where, if you challenge him, he might respond to you and refer to you as a “subscriber”. To his credit, you can read he and I go at it in an on-going exchange [click here]. However, it’s most interesting when Harold debates - Harold. [...]