Stan Geiger

School Bond Money and Salaries

I've heard it issued almost like a disclaimer in news reports about TPS' enormous proposed bond issue: Bond money can't be used for salaries. Well, that's not quite true.

In my previous piece, I wrote of the big lie about how people can vote $354 million to a school district without incurring a tax increase. Your property tax goes up every year. The more junk you have loaded on that bill the more the annual increases will be. Of course this bond issue will cost you money if it passes.

But even accepting the claim as true, there is still no good reason to vote yes. I mean I can come up with a plan. I can argue the government should borrow $5 million and give it to me. It would be good for the economy because I would get rich, and could go out on a spending spree. And my plan could certainly be implemented without raising your taxes.

Would you vote for that?

If not, you shouldn't vote $354 million in bond money for TPS just because the educators claim it can be done without raising your taxes. That's not a good enough justification.

On the matter of bond money not paying salaries, it can be done and is being done---indirectly.

Reports say $260 million is to go to capital projects, renovations, classroom construction and, of course, athletic facilities. I think this part of the bond proposal definitely overreaches. That point aside, it is at least valid to pay for capital projects with borrowed money.

The rest of the money, some $90 million, goes to other stuff. The other stuff, like computers and software, buses, technological gadgets for teachers, television sets and textbooks, come under the heading of supplies and equipment. They should be purchased using annual operating money.

If tens of millions of dollar's worth of expenditures can be moved out of operational spending and financed with debt instead, tens of millions of dollars in operational funds are freed up for salaries.

It's a shell game, folks. The educators are just moving the pea.

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