What they didn't tell You last night about the $189.5m School Bond Referendum - it will cost You $269,164,093

Well, watched last night's Board of Silence Caucus meeting and watched their experts roll out their Proposed $189,500,000 Bond Referendum which is seriously opaque, based on an ill-conceived plan, is grossly overpriced with ridiculous costs (cost per sq. ft. and other allowable costs), has no scheduling plan and many other things wrong with it.

It's a Jerry 'Needs to Step-down' Shi and his band of architects plan as a result of failed Overcrowding Committees on both sides of town.

There's a lot more to say about this Proposal but I'll wait until after they vote on this Resolution next Monday to get into the details.

The purpose of this post just to let you know what they conveniently neglected to tell you at last night's meeting.

They conveniently didn't tell you that the total cost of these six (6) schools is $312,772,719 ($189,500,000 + interest of $123,272,719) and with only $43,608,626 in state aid, the total Cost to You is $269,164,093.

While they talked about the what you'll see in the language of Bond Question on December 10th was only the names of the schools involved and the insignificant state aid numbers - they conveniently left out the most important thing that will be on the Bond Referendum Question - the increase in the School Tax Levy.

What You'll be Voting on is to Approve a Tax Levy of $269,164,093.

YUP..that's $269,164,093 on You!

That's a Tad Bit Not Nice to be so deceitful to the public to try and sell something that only deserves to be laughed at and then kicked to the curb.

Even with their own numbers, they want to double what you pay now in school tax increases for the next 30 years.

Now, these aren't my numbers, it's their numbers, which they conveniently didn't show or tell You about last night.  I OPRA'd the numbers from the financial consultant and you can see them in the picture below. There's some obvious financial questions about some of the numbers used in this report but that's a discussion for another day.

And seriously, what's all this jibber..jabbish on state aid? On the $189,500,000 they only got $31,083,781. It's simple - renovations are funded at 40% of full cost and new additions are only funded at 40% up to $143 sq. ft.. And if you go back and look at the compilation post (July 11, 2019) in this blog, you will see that the sq. ft. run in the $400 range. They should of spent more time talking about the $189,500,000 than the $31,083,781. Oh wait, they couldn't do that - then they'd have to explain their ridiculous numbers.

Be that as it may, this is an Excel file which is a calculator so you can see what this Proposed Disaster will cost You over the 30 year life of the bonds with their own numbers. All you have to enter is Your assessed value and it will show You how this will effect You.

Not everyone, except Mayor Tom 'Now 24.1% but Won't Debate' ChoiLankey claims to live in that mythical average home assessed at $173,800 - so enough with that nonsense, it's just a point of reference but reference points don't help You in knowing what it will Cost YOU. Use the calculator below.

Feel free to hit the 'Email Me' button up top and I will forward you the file. I can't upload that file here since this Blog doesn't handle the calculations.

Here's the Financial Consultant's Report from which I put together the calculator above:




And here's last night's Caucus meeting. Pay attention to the experts discussion and then compare that to the numbers in their report above - and You'll see exactly why You Got Played. And if you don't see that - ask yourself why the experts didn't put up all their usual fancy slides with all the numbers on it for you to see.




Anyhoo, pay attention folks, this Bond Proposal is Ridiculous and they're trying to sneak it in past you. Don't fall for it. There's a better way to deal with the Overcrowding and a lot less expensive than the Jerry 'Needs to Step-Down' Shi and his band of architects way.