BURKEonBOARD

(Sept. 30, 2008) – We’re learning more and more about the bond sale the school board is planning and the tax increase that will go along with it.

And what we’re learning doesn’t necessarily square with what we’ve heard at recent school board meetings.

First, you need to know what the bond sale is for.

There are lots of details about the proposed bond sale that are helpful to know and we’ve written several times about it since the board started talking about it only earlier this month. You can get caught up by reading Another School District Tax?, Lookout! Tax Increase Ahead! and School Board’s Open Door Policy.

Bottom line, the board plans to sell up to $12.1 million in bonds to finance the payment of future health insurance premiums for school district retirees. These are premium payments that go out 30 years into the future, yet the board wants to borrow all that money and raise taxes now to pay for it over 20 years. And you don’t get a say if you agree to those taxes because the state says the board doesn’t have to ask you.

That’s an end run around the state’s own requirement that school districts submit to a operating levy referendum if they wish to exceed the basic school tax levy authority. And it’s a tax increase that will come at a time when our house values are going down. Yet, the board thinks we shouldn’t get a say in the matter.

It’s an end run around the fact that Farmington voters only gave the district one of the three tax increases it asked for last November, and now they have a way to raise taxes that doesn’t require a vote of the people. That is about as cynical as government can get.

As concerning as the tax increase is, the scare tactics being used by the school district administration to rush the board into selling the bonds and raising taxes is worse.

District officials are telling the board that this bond sale and tax levy must be passed now because the legislature might change the rules and ban these sales next year when there is absolutely no evidence that might happen.

They told the board that selling these bonds might improve the district’s bond rating (or at least keep it from going down) when the only bond sale in the district’s foreseeable future is the bond sale they’re being railroaded into now.

What this is all about is freeing general fund money that is now spent for retiree health insurance so it can be used for other things, while the new taxes are dedicated to the retiree benefits. Maybe there’s a chance we could buy all this if the board hadn’t just hired a new bureaucrat (assistant superintendent) at a cost of over $150,00 a year, or voted to put artificial turf ($750,000) in the fancy new football stadium at the new $100 million high school.

And the board wonders why folks don’t trust them.

Here’s a video clip of yours truly sharing my ideas with the board at the last meeting and board member Tim Weyandt explaining why I’m all wet. At least he didn’t call me a lyin’ PR hack again. That’s progress.

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