Once again Nancy Nilsen asserted that there would be no new taxes generated to pay for the Red Plan. She corrected Gary first a month ago then she corrected me at the Chamber Debate.
The District was originally planning to let additional bonds in 2011 but is now racing to sell them next year before a new school board scuttles the Red Plan. The bonds will be for the last third of the $293 million project.
Most reasoning people would think that borrowing $90 million dollars would require a School District to levy taxes to pay it off with the interest. Nancy simply says this won’t happen. She says that our District will save $125 million dollars by implementing the Red Plan so, of course, all that savings will pay the bond off. Cross her heart it will.
There is one sure way to pay off the bonds without raising taxes to pay them off. Raise taxes for the operating levies and pay them off. You could just claim that the loan is being paid off with savings. What savings? how about savings from not having school on January; or savings from only driving kids to school four days a week; or savings from sticking a couple extra kids in each class; or savings from laying off a slug of teachers. Just call me a cynic. Maybe a sip of Nancy’s Kool Aid will fix that.
