AG 1993 07 22 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Statement on the Proposed School Bond Referendum One of the clearest and most important responsibilities County Commissioners have is the funding.of public school facilities. The chief ~ethod o~ aocomp11~hing this task is through school bonds which require a public vote. Unfortunately, the public is often mislead into thinking that a ~now~ result on school bonds ends the matter, but such is not the case. The only alternative to bonds is pay-as-you-go financing which means a significantly higher tax burden is placed on today,s tax payer than would occur if bonds were used. In other words, we as Commissioners, cannot duck the issue. We have to fund public school construction. The only question is how. compared to what Commissioners usually see in requests for school construction, the request presently.before us is unique in the public input that went ~nto ~t before we received it. In this respect the School Boards deserve high marks and we would like to encourage them to continue the process in the future. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons including the difficult and time consuming exercise this Board just concluded in the budget del~beratlons, we could not devote sufficient time to the specifics of the requests and the strategies on how to proc~ed. The Schoo% Boards have fulfilled their responsib~litles in telling us what their school construction needs are. Our job is to decide how to raise the funds to meet those needs and develop a funding plan that the public can understand. To hold a referendum in NovemBer requires that decision to be made now in order to meet the legal requirements of the bond referendum process. For such an important matter, we must take all the time needed in order to do our job competently and avoid hasty decision making. Therefore, I recommend that the referendum be held in May 1994. This date has several advantages: 1. It allows the Board adequate time to decide among various funding scenarios. 2. It allows more time for school officials to explain school building needs to the voters. 3. It enables the Board to make clear to the public that the question before them is not whether we will build new school buildings but how we will fund this statutory responsibility. 4. It places the bond referendum on a general election day which normally results in greater voter participation. With this in mind, I move that we defer the ~_estion of calling for a referendum on school bonds unt~l the first meeting in October.