SQ #801 - Allow Certain Voter-Approved Property Taxes to Fund School District Operations Amendment.
I'm leaning 'yes'.
Thoughts?
I'm leaning 'yes'.
Thoughts?
SQ #801 - Allow Certain Voter-Approved Property Taxes to Fund...
- Thread starter Bitter Creek
- Start date
I voted yes to give the local districts more latitude in how they manage their money. However, I think using bond money for operations is poor long term fiscal policy.
Will vote No. Using bond money for operation funding is an easy button to avoid fixing a poorly run system. I also could see infrastructure be neglected.
I could make a good case for a yes vote as well...such as Ostatechi mentioned: giving local districts more latitude on how they spend their money.
I could make a good case for a yes vote as well...such as Ostatechi mentioned: giving local districts more latitude on how they spend their money.
I’m a yes. I’m tired of seeing districts build things we don’t need, like 5 star football fields at middle schools than on things that are really necessary.
What's going to happen is that the districts will see this new bond money as a windfall and will spend it earlier than the life of the bond itself. Then they'll need another bond to maintain their new expenditures that they had committed to via prior spending. So now you'll have obsolete debt, plus new debt, as well as other capital bonds for structures themselves. Don't get me wrong. It will be great for your kids. They will see a spending boom. But it will be a boom funded by your kids' and will impact your kids' kids.
How is property taxes bond money? This has nothing to do with issuing bonds, it just allows the districts more discretion on how to allocate the collected annual property taxes. It does allow an allocation to a building fund, which would basically be earmarked school funds. This would be no different then a NPO creating its own board designated fund from existing revenue streams that are from unrestricted revenues, which is not debt financing but merely a reservation of net assets for a specific use. It says nothing about approving new bonds. Seems to me if a building fund could grow over time perhaps some smaller projects could be done without bond money and they could better maintain facilities. The designated building fund’s net assets would be supported by cash or highly liquid investments that was funded by the property taxes.
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I think I misread it. You are correct. I apologize for my prior viewpoints. I misunderstood it to mean that the counties could start utilizing Bond monies to cover operating expenses as referenced in Cordellhall's and ostatedchi's posts.
It would allow the raising of special ad valorem taxes to expend on operating expenses.
I voted no because I want the entire system fixed rather than Edmond raising my property taxes to pay for operating expenses only within the district and thereby leaving the rest of the districts in an even greater dust cloud of funding from the state.
Oklahoma: “don’t worry there will be another energy boom and it will never bust.”
The state of Oklahoma should not treat education like a capitalist entity. They need to take money from rich districts and give it to poor districts. A luxury tax.
