UPDATE: Looks like they will be asking for $190 million dollar bond in a stand alone election in September. Never pass. Never. If they get 45% I would be shocked. The only saving grace of the night is that they will assess us over 10 years and incrementally raise taxes over that time period. They are going to sell this to us as a $3 a month increase ($185K valuation).
One of the best ideas of the night came from Public Works Director Mark Cotter (who I think knows passing the $190 million is going to be a challenge). He suggested a $126 million dollar bond and pay for the rest with capital outlay funds. He got poo-poo’d right away. They were quick to point out that they can’t trust Pierre and they may need that money for other stuff. In other words, get as much as we can and hey if the outlay money is still there, we’ll spend that to. A lot of greedy people run our school district.
The final meeting will be tonight at 5:30 PM at the IPC.
The group is expected to come up with a final price-tag and what exactly that will be paying for. They will also be discussing an election date. I think they are shooting for $150 million.
The Superintendent wants the election in September as a stand alone, which I think is a bad idea and will not get the 60% passage required, I think they would be better off having it in November.
I think they are assuming they will have a lower voter turnout which equates to a better chance of passing the bond issue. In other words they are going to appeal to people who they think will be willing to pass it. Sometimes this works, in this case I don’t think they will get passage for either date. I think they need to get the bond at or under $100 million. If they go with the $150 million price tag, that will equate to a $100 a year for every $100K valuation of home in property taxes.
While I know we need to build new schools, I think they should scrape some of the money from other sources and get the price tag down below $100 million. I also think they need a long range to 5 year plan in build all of the schools, spreading the expense out. I will vote against it if they can’t get it down to $100 million, and I have a feeling most people will to. I would be surprised if they even get 40% in favor of it.
There is no way they will use the November date, because they are dependent upon “Super Precincts” to get their way.
I still say we could save a lot of money if we just turn the NTHS into Jefferson High.
If you live in Sioux Falls limits but are in the Brandon school district does this tax increase affect you?
Tax Question, no it will not directly.
In the past 15 months, a lot of $ 160,000 homes are now valued at $ 200,000, due to hyper inflation from a greater demand for median priced homes in this town. So that reality alone is a 25% increase in your tax levy. And now, they want to add to this burden with an additional $ 36 per year on a $ 185,000 home, or $ 39 for a home priced at $ 200,000.
So before we accept this proposal, I would like to know what the School Board is doing with the windfall from hyperinflation with median priced housing in this town relative to this proposal; and what the actual forecasted increase for most median priced homeowners in this town is, when comparing your 2018 tax bill with your potential 2020 bill?
Because 47% of ones property tax bill in this town goes to the School District, and if you accept the premise that a $ 200,000 home (av) has an annual property tax bill of $ 2500 (with the assessed value to be 80% of the market value of your home), then you have already experienced a $ 294 increase to your property tax bill just because of the School District’s needs from 2016 to 2018 for a $ 200,000 (av) home due to housing inflation; and now add an other $ 39 for a total of $ 333 per year.
Now many may say, well, that just $ 27.75 a month, but if you got a 2% raise last year and you make $ 25.00 per hour – a reality that I might add, which most cannot relate too – then that means that roughly a 1/3 of your raise will go to the property tax increase, which I acknowledged, but if you make $ 16.00 per hour and you got a 1% raise this past year, then that means that your entire raise went to the property tax bill increase caused by hyperinflation in this town for median price housing and the wants of the School District.
Also, my guess is that most can relate to the $ 16 per hour scenario more than the $ 25 per hour scenario and many in this town did not even get any raise in the past year; and keep in mind, this is all relative for a greater income with a great house as well.
So there are some questions that need to be answered here. I am not against new schools, and we need them, nor am I against more pay for teachers, but why did we build the NTHS, when everyone knew that Jefferson High was just a matter of time? And how much is that windfall that I speak of and what is being done with it; and could it not be better used to augment the monetary needs of this overall school building proposal, in order to keep property tax increases in check?
NTHS is owned by STI and not the district which is a small technicality. It’s also not big enough to turn into a full-scale school. My opinion is we build the high school and then once those schools are to capacity stop accepting new students. Because god knows people hate paying more for education. Another idea would be to just privatize the whole thing. Why should I pay for good schools when I have no kids and won’t use them.
VSG – That has always been my argument, if we have all this new construction and hyper inflation, why do they need to continue to raise our taxes for this stuff? Shouldn’t the money be there from all this growth? Towards the end of the meeting where they finally take public input, George Hahn lays into them about the valuations and other things. Notice how quickly they had to bat down Mark Cotter (who knows damn well they are taking in a lot of money with the capital outlay funds) and didn’t want anybody touching that money, or more importantly didn’t want anyone to know it exists.
Nick, are you sure about that?
http://www.sf.k12.sd.us/schools/high-schools/new-technology
Plus, no one said that there wouldn’t be modifications or additions to NTHS to make it Jefferson High.
Privatization would be a mess.
And why do you pay for it, when you have no kids? Well, for the same reason my son registered for the draft to in theory save your freedoms. Where’s your son to protect my freedoms?
l3wis, I want to see the windfall tax gains that the City, County, and School District are getting from the hyperinflation in median priced housing in this town, that’s all I ask for right now, then we can discuss new schools, banking money for the future against the State’s inadequacy to appropriately fund education, and increasing teacher pay.
What really amazes me is that during the last major TIF approval, Councilwoman Erickson told us that TIFs don’t hurt funding for School Districts because the State recognizes TIFs and makes up the difference; but if the State can and is willing to do that, then why is the School Board so distrustful of the State’s future commitments? It seems the State that Erickson knows and the one that the Board knows is not one and in the same….. (?)
VSG – The building is owned by STI while the school is part of SFSD. I assumed that was understandable from what I said. NTHS only use about half of the building. The other half houses STI including their IT department. Plus if you have ever driven up to the building, you would see that there is no place to expand that building if they could without taking out all of the parking spaces.
But STI until recently was owned and/or run by the School Board, right? Didn’t we vote in the last election to transfer the responsibility of STI from the Board to the Regents? So NTHS and its building were initially a Board decision and execution, right? And isn’t there more land nearby that can be acquired? Plus, isn’t NTHS a luxury as we now struggle to fund a fourth high school?
VSG – Why would we buy more land when we where already gifted more land then we need? That would seem like a waste of taxpayer money. The building is surrounded on all four sides by developments.
Next, the way the location was administered doesn’t matter now. That’s in the past, and I don’t remember a ‘Take Back’ clause.
No, It’s not a luxury it’s a school that provides a different learning environment for students than a traditional school. It lets those students succeed as well while saving money through the ability to take free STI classes.
Lastly, if we took away NTHS, we would need to build a new school that was even bigger to accommodate the displaced students. Which would equal even more money.
For a “very stable genius” you seem to be lacking on all three fronts.
Also are you sure you are thinking of NTHS and not CTE which is in a field by STI but a whole different beast?
Nick,
Have I hit a nerve?
We can always sell the land that was ‘gifted.’
So your second paragraph admits that STI started out as Board property. What did we put into it and what did we get back?
As far as your third paragraph, well, my great nephew is actually a graduate of NTHS and now he is studying physics at a liberal arts school, so I don’t know why a student like that would want to go to a trade school after HS.
Actually, your third and fourth paragraphs speak to an obsession with vocational education prior to graduation, which I am not so keen on nor sympathetic too. And by turning NTHS into Jefferson High we can return to an emphasis of educating our children as individuals and not merely as cogs for our economy.
As far as for your tears for NTHS, well, I think that NTHS is a luxury, when we are now struggling to pay for more school buildings. Everyone knows, that NTHS is merely a window into a pro-vocational/”Workforce Development” mentality, where they want to channel students away from Bill Shakespeare to Bill the mechanic just so they can accommodate the service needs of the upper middle income, the elites, and the 1 per centers of our society.
As far as your personal slam at me, well, you can always tell when one is winning an argument, because the failed opponent starts to attack the messenger instead of the message…
How, and I am talking about NTHS too, which started out with the Board before the voters gave it to the Regents…. 😉
I will say I am astonished at this conversation. None of you were “clear as a bell,” IMO. Education is more expensive than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and 30 years ago, etc. etc. etc.
I agree with one concept presented by VSG: that is that there is a strong bent in our vocational institutions here to do workforce development. Some of that is good, but what would be wonderful is if we were doing some cutting edge stuff that was workforce development (that would mean we had some cutting edge employers here). So maybe we need the cutting edge stuff to get the cutting edge employers here.
I just didn’t like the “tone” set in this thread. To me, it was gripe, gripe, gripe about education costs and it just doesn’t sit well with me. IMO, with education, you get what you pay for–whether it is buildings or bodies.