Letter to the Editor: The Wrong Purpose, Wrong Cost, Wrong Time

On November 06, Dorchester County residents will vote on whether to commit to a $180 million Dorchester 2 school bond issue. First, to what essential purposes will the funds be used? Second, does the size of the funding request reflect the minimum that is necessary to meet those essential purposes? Third, in this anemic economy, is it the right time to ask property owners to obligate themselves to a new and significant tax burden.

Let us try to answer these three questions.

Clearly there is a compelling need to add facilities to meet the steadily growing school age population. But any plan to meet this need must show it will maintain class size at a reasonable level, provide a curriculum of essential course work and, in that environment,show how it will increase student mastery and graduation rate.

The District 2 Plan, as presented, clearly addresses but one of these purposes and that is class size which the District is focused on reducing even in the absence of demonstrated correlation between class size and educational results. In turn, the Plan includes over20% of the budget for new programs, and includes no reference to how that will improve student comprehension, achievement, or graduation rate.
Beyond that, the Plan sets aside another 10% for “catch up” maintenance. In the recentyears, by what standard did District 2 Management operate to let so much deteriorationoccur in the system’s facilities? From the tens of millions of dollars spend annually, why did Management choose not to find funds to properly maintain its buildings? Should this be a measure of competence regards use of the new requested funds?

So without a plan that clearly demonstrates improvement in the education process, why would tax payers of the Dorchester County District 2 School System be willing to support an increase in taxes, never mind funding a highly ambitious and ambiguous program.

If the bond referendum were to be approved, the Dorchester 2 School System would have bond obligations totaling a little less than $400 million and well over $500 million when interest is included. This would be for school construction only. Operating costs will be added later. This will be greatly in excess of the assessed value of real estate in Dorchester County which, after next year’s assessment, will be about $400 million.Clearly bond bidders will evaluate the new and significantly higher risk and may well assign a higher interest rate than is anticipated.

Taxpayers are highly aware of these uncertain financial times. The Federal Governmentand State Government have spent billions promoting policies whose benefits are difficult to find. In what way is Dorchester County School District 2 plan different?

Charles Nystrom, 121 Anstead Dr., Summerville SC 29485, 843-871-8550

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