More Hogwash From Another Allen Co. School System
Posted by John B. Kalb - 8/5/10 @ 11:37 pm - Filed Under Uncategorized
In Wednesday’s News-Sentinel, Sarah Janssen published an article covering the action of the SACS board in approving a $1,350,000 contract to a Michigan firm to install an “energy-saving” roof on the Summit Middle School building. She quoted Mr. Jim Coplen, Business Manager from SACS, in saying that the yearly savings due to this expenditure would be $37,000 per year resulting in a pay-back in 8 years.
Well, $37,000 for each of 8 years would result in a total of $296,000 - not even close to the $1,350,000 cost of the energy-saving roof! So I wrote an email note to Sarah asking how Coplen came up with these erroneous numbers(copying Mr. Coplen).
As of tonight, 8/5/2010, I have not heard from Sarah. But, I did hear early this morning from Coplen, outlining how he had calculated the payback. Basically, he told me that the cost to just replace the roof was quoted back in early July at $425,000. The school board asked him to see if there was some way to get help in paying for part of this cost. So the administation came up with a scheme that could allow them to apply for federal help and - yes, help was available - but it required spending an additional $825,000 on an ‘energy-efficient” roof. If this was purchased, $600,000 in federal money would be available. So the net increase in SACS money to be spent would be $225,000 and this would result in the 8 year payback, but only of the $225,000! So another $600,000 in future tax revenues could be used to enable SACS to spend $225,000 more than the replacement cost. So all the kids and grandkids in the USofA will be paying this $600,000 back - with interest - probably to China over the next 20 or so years.
Mr. Coplen included a statement in his reply to me that said,”I have been told by the feds if we don’t use the $600,000 it will go to someone else”. This is like our young children saying, “Everyone else is doing it, why can’t I do it also?”
We are in dire need of some fiscal restraint not only on the federal level , but also on the local level! Seems like we are not getting it!
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8 Responses to “More Hogwash From Another Allen Co. School System”
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East Allen County Schools is looking to do the same thing. Spend a lot of money to update facilities by borrowing from the federal government to purchase long term bonds, yet still obligating property owners for years to come. Here is the quote from their web site:
QUALIFIED SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND:
• As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of
2009, the federal Treasury has continued the Qualified School
Construction Bond (QSCB) program for 2010. Indiana’s authorization
is for the 2010 program is $182,583,000. Of this amount $82,583,000
will designated for bonds up to $2,000,000 and the remaining
$100,000,000 will be designated for bonds over $2,000,000 but no
larger than $10,000,000.
• Proceeds of this bond will be used for qualified construction,
rehabilitation, or repair of a public school facility or for the acquisition
of land on which such a facility is to be constructed.
• These are low interest bonds and for a less than $2,000,000 bond the
ten-year tax rate would be less than $0.018 per $100 AV.
There was an article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago regarding the debt created at the local government level that is about to overwhelm taxpayers in the near future.
just because the money is there doesn’t mean you have to spend it for the sake of spending it.
sorry, here is the link to the WSJ article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704269204575270802154485456.html?KEYWORDS=local+government+debt
John, thanks for looking into this. It is another case where “Trust but Verify” is undertaken by the average citizen. Again we find that politicians do not understand math and that instead of accepting some stupid argument like that of Coplen shows why it is more important than ever to question ALL activities, expenditures of the government on our behalf.
For several weeks I have heard on the news the National Deficit this year ending Sept. 30 2010 will be $1.4 Trillion. Well I hate to burst people’s bubbles, but the deficit as of August 7, 2010 is already $1.4 Trillion and we still have seven weeks left in the year. Based on the past three months running average for a monthly deficit, we are looking at $100 Billion per month So we could see between $1.57 and $1.6 Trillion for 2010.
One approach to saving money for our schools is to start after Labor day. This would get rid of nearly three weeks of air conditioning for the schools.
“Artful accounting” covers up reckless spending for only so long. Sooner or later, you have to fess up to the cold hard reality of basic math, i.e. 2+2=4…..
All the federal government money does is allow the school corporations, states, & cities to continue to spend recklessly. They all know the federal government sooner or later will bail them out so why change. It’s free money right? The government makes their own don’t they?
timraiders is exactly right. Cities, school systems, towns, etc get a “grant” and create another series of unfunded monsters that perpetuates the cycle. It’s back asswards and it’s precisely why we have trillions in national debt that we’ll never be able to pay off.
The major moves of Indiana may sound good: build bridges roads, but the problem is this is not to cover infrastructure repairs and upkeep, but new infrastructure for which is required future expenditures to maintain it. They may have the money to build it, but they do not have the money to maintain it. This is called cash flow accounting the opposite of that which is needed accrual accounting.
EACS’s have been operating with excess capacity and no one want’s their school closed, but they do not want to pay higher taxes to keep them open. FWCS’s has the same problem. The only two which seem to be growing are SWAC and NWAC, why? Are people moving out of the EACS and FWCS districts in search of better operated schools?
Bill - You can find the answer to your question, at least for FWCS, in the United Way diversity study published around 2000. Although it’s about ten years old, the trends it cites haven’t changed. You can verify that on the IDE web site for FWCS which shows the district is losing hundreds of middle class (white) students every year, which up to now have been balanced out by an influx of minorities.
EACS covers a huge area with wide disparities in income levels and school quality. They have one of the state’s outstanding high schools at LEO and one of the worst at Harding, which is about like Wayne. FWCS has tried to even out the disparities for twenty years by busing kids to the schools north of Coliseum, but that’s no longer working. And it has made schools like Snider and Northrup, which would otherwise be on a par with the best suburban schools, into also rans.