Health & Fitness
Thank God for School Bonds
Sometimes spending is the right thing to do. The school bond payments should be happily paid because they save more than they cost.
This blog is presented for concept purposes only. I intend to follow up with more detail. On August 17 the Barnegat Patch published the following news report . The board attorney confirmed what I said over a month ago. School bond payments are constant for the foreseeable future. I explained in an earlier blog this was by design. I chaired the committee that recommended it.
The head-in-the-sand crowd complains about these bonds. They say the bonds are increasing taxes, but the facts show otherwise. Consider the following information:
2011-12 BUDGET INFORMATION
Find out what's happening in Barnegat-Manahawkinfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
SRHS Total Comparative Per Pupil Cost
Find out what's happening in Barnegat-Manahawkinfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
$16,062
BARNEGAT Total Comparative Per Pupil Cost
$12,640
Difference:
$3,422
Assumed Barnegat HS Students:
950
Dollars more Barnegat HS students would cost if they went to Southern
$3,250,900
This does not represent the exact dollar amount Barnegat saves from building our own high school. I believe it is conservative as it does not reflect the cost of SRSD building a new school.
The dollars saved this year in raw cost more than offset the cost of all our bonds. This is significant because we would, as a minimum, have bonds for new middle and grade school capacity. This means our high school savings pays for all the districts expansion costs.
The $2.8 million bond payments lower our taxes. It is time to stop blaming tax burdens on these bonds. The bonds are virtually free and give us control over spending we could not have as a sending district to SRSD.
