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$10 million bond for new high school--for 27 students!

L

littlefarmer

Member
My school district just passed a $10 million tax bond to build a brand new high school. And we graduated 8 kids last May!

Total student body is 27 this year.

Living in Nebraska, where property taxes are EXTREMELY high, and hit farmers like me the hardest.

160 acre farm, non-irrigated, 1970 modest ranch home. And I'm paying over $12,000 per year already!

Town only has population of 444. Yet there's a clique of self-appointed "town boosters", who seem determined to "save the town" regardless.

Yet it still got voted for in the election. Is there something wrong with me, for being totally &@#$!! about this?
 
are there any state regulations about this sort of thing? here there are rules and limits on what the local school boards can do. i would dig there.


i would say it makes no sense. that's about (12+million) what we spent on a very nice new high school about 6 years ago and it holds around 1400 students in all 4 grades. my property taxes (no farm ground) are about 1/10 of yours. but i'll also spend 700 to tag 4 cars.

i will say. other than small nickle and dime taxes, Indiana is run fairly well.
 
I find it hard to believe a new school will only be 10M. Granted the enrollment is small and the facility would not need to be palacial, but with utilities, security, and technology that I?ve seen on the school remodels as of late that number seems low.
 
My taxes on two farms, with houses and barns, on 276 acres, and a separate one acre lot are right at 12 grand per year. And I have to contend with thousands of people in my county, and another 6 million only 100 miles away that like to go to the country on the weekend . Taxes suck the life out of you no matter where you are
 
Everything costs money. $10 million will barely buy 3 sections of bare row crop farmland in many areas. Unless rural communities can attract new industries they will continue to loose people. You can't attract new industry or retain people without good schools.

Restricting property taxes sounds like a good idea in the short term, but makes farmland very attractive to corporations and out of state investor groups. Wait until you need to start rebuilding roads and bridges to handle oversize farm equipment for XYZ Farms Ltd. or the People's Republic of China Farms.
 
Some small country schools Indiana have 300- 400 students enrolled some way over that. Your school construction cost sounds normal for 300-400 students but not justified for 27.
 
My neighbor who only farms 40 acres pays 12k a year in taxes in Washington state and then pays 2k for water rights
 
I know everybody wants everything to be simple, but there's always a more complicated version of the story when all the facts are put out on the table. I'm guessing this is no exception.

First off, WHO voted for this $10 million bond? The school board or the voters? Your post implies that the school board did it on their own? I doubt that's possible, or at least if it is in NE, you're one of the few states where this could happen. Most bonding issues have to go to the ballot.

Secondly, what does state law require as far as the provisioning of a school? How far are you allowed to bus students on a pupil average unit? Many state laws give no choice in the matter, you have to have a school within X miles of the average pupil over a given timeframe. This prevents exactly the situation you describe where a bunch of people get together and decide it's not "worth" spending all that money on a school when the kids could just ride 40 miles each way over to the next big town and go to school there.

Finally, the $10 million price tag may also be state dictated in terms of the requirements for each school REGARDLESS of enrollment. In most states, there is a laundry list of things you MUST provide in each school. You can't just pull a bunch of trailer houses together and call it good like California tried to do or build a 1 room schoolhouse heated by a coal stove.

Again, I'm thinking that the real story is a lot more complex than just the headline of "Runaway School Board Spends $10 Million of Your Money".

If you think education is expensive, try living in a country without it for a while. They don't spend anything on schools in Zimbabwe. And it shows.

Grouse
 
Politicians just love to spend OTHER peoples money. The government cant give something to someone they don't take/tax from others lol. I'm NOT saying good or bad about the school or its cost ONLY the facts above...?

John T
 
You're the canary in the coal mine. Low population density areas can only generate so much tax revenue before you kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

Infrastructure costs are rising much faster than what revenue base can keep up with in rural areas. In the "old days", locals in a small district like yours could show up with hammer in hand and build a school themselves. Now everything is specified, insured, bonded, licensed, etc. and it all adds up to more $$$.

Now there are a lot of good reasons for reasons for regulation and insurance and oversight but sometimes I think we've gone a little too overboard.

I have an ancient photo of my Grandfather and Great-Grandfather and a group of other men in front of their church with paint brushes in hand. When the church needed painting or a new roof or anything the men got together and did the work themselves.
A church near me has had work done recently and now everything is hired out. It's great to hire professionals but it costs big money to do so. The church is not doing well financially partially as a result of ongoing and upcoming maintenance and *insurance* costs.

Some roads in this area that once featured a "chip seal" type of pavement have been ground back up into gravel roads because the county can not afford to maintain them in paved condition. The cost for materials have gone up tremendously in the last 10 years. People are complaining but also complaining about paying more taxes. They moved out here and built mcmansions and want city convenience but think roads and trash service don't cost anything.


I often wonder how this is all going to end up.
 
pheeew!!! I guess I better quit complaining about property taxes in Ohio. I pay just under $3000 a year for 56 total acres and $1600 of that is on 3 acres where the house and 5 barns sit.
 
Here in Minnesota the state changed how property taxes and the ?homesteading credit? gets calculated so,e years ago.

So, when my town needed a new school building (it did, I would have been for that) instead the ballot had a new school campus with a new
school and 30 acres of sports fields. The cost of the sports complex and yearly upkeep dwarfs the actual, needed school building cost.

The town of 14,000 voted for it, because their taxes would increase about $40 a year per lot, the mansions in town maybe up to $120 a year.

My small farm, I?m paying an extra $800 a year for school bond for the next 17 years. Most of the 1000 farmers in the district voted against it.

Can you guess why the farmers voted against it? Can you see why the town folk voted for it?

Can you see any problems with the tax structure and voting of the state?

Minnesota, as with Nebraska, has the exact same structure as my school district. There are very many voters in the city areas, and they have
realized they can vote to stick it to the low population rural areas. Stick it to those rich farmers, ha! They have voted themselves free and clear
of tax liability, and vote the costs upon others removed from them.

Paul
 
In mom's town it cost $4 million to rebuild the high school football stadium. $10 million for a high school sounds low even for a small student body.
 
What is not being said is that once the school is built, there will be a new ballot issue for "operating expenses."
 
It is driving the car looking in the rear view mirror. All one needs to do is go for a drive and look out the windshield.
If you drive through a hundred little towns of less than 1000 population most a dying. But people insist that the village has to go back to being the great place it was when they grew up. It is not going to happen. Watch the movie "Nebraska".
I am sure the remoteness of your location makes consolidation unrealistic due to commute distances, but there has to be a more economical (maybe high tech) solution. How much of this decision is based upon giving the kids a good education and how much is based on "save the town" hysteria? If the state has school building rules, exceptions can be granted if someone makes a case for the deviation.

Lots of comments on this site are from us old guys wanting the world to turn back the clock.. sorry it is not going to happen. We also love to blame the government, as if the government isn't us.
 
That works out to 25000+ for every man,woman and child in the community,factor in salaries insurance, upkeep and maintenance,administration and other mandated costs and you might as well declare bankruptsey now. Just plain idiotic.
 
You can take a high school graduate and in 3-4 months turn them into a jet engine mechanic in a ******** (explicative deleted) Quonset Hut. Why do school boards want fancy schools? So they can get their name on the bronze plaque on the front of the magnificent edifice so their pitiful existence can be remembered, and so when they go to State meeting with the other parasites they can brag about what they "accomplished" for "their" school system. What burns me is that in voting on property taxes you have a lot of voters that do not pay property taxes (in MI your "homestead" is exempt) so they are getting (to paraphrase out founding fathers) representation without taxation.
 
No,there is nothing wrong with you...Farm land owners in Nebraska are being screwed over with some paying up to $80-100 per acre in taxes......Here in Missouri I pay $2.00 to $3.00 per acre for tillable dryland....A HS with only 27 students needs to merge with another district..
 
Every blasted time I go pay taxes.just shy of 3/4 goes to stupid k8ds and schools. Is the any company in the WORLD who can blow this much money quarterly?????
cvphoto1994.jpg
 
One more comment on your situation. I see lots of comments on this site complaining (rightfully) about bad government decisions. I often wonder if the person complaining made any effort to directly influence the situation before it was finalized and announced. Were they on top of the situation and involved enough to know what was in the works? If they wanted to influence the outcome did they make calls to politicians, write letters, rally their friends and neighbors?

My mother lived in a little town and never held office, but she influenced every decision in that town. She did not win every battle, and she made some enemies, but she sure as heil tried, and she never waited until the cow was out of the barn and off the property to complain to people 800 miles away.

We, the citizens, recently stopped a proposed $34 mil new high school in my town. The board tried to sneak it through, but some on the ball local farmers got wind of it and through meetings, petitions and road signs, they got it on the ballot and it was defeated. But, we did not wait until it was too late and complain...it is our government and we made it operate the way we wanted. Government works when it is responsive to the citizens, but the citizens must tell govt what it wants.
 
We've got people who---for lack of a better description--are "stuck in the 1950's". They remember a time when every section had four farms, and every farm had 5 kids. They don't understand that those days are water long since over the dam and out of sight.

The 2010 General Census showed the largest growing demographic in small rural communities is single and widowed women over 80.
 
Well to a point. Local twp. several years ago wanted to build a big new twp. complex building. Fire and rescue. Trick is all of this stuff is here just two seperate buildings. Got voted down on the ballot SOUNDLY. Guesss what they did a couple of months latter because with the swipe of a pen they made everything obsolete and it was irrevocable. Screwed again.
 
That is what mine is too Butch,,and I was crying about that...most farms in my Central Ohio area are paying about $55-$60 per acre..and I don't think I'm getting my monies worth out of the school system...
 
Wow that is ALOT of money ! I'm in Ohio and the lottery was started to "save the schools" Well the schools are still in just as bad of shape and in fact I now have to pay an additional 1 1/2% of my income on top of the still in place property taxes.
In my area there is not really any businesses in the school zone to help fund them. Also seems like all the levies pass. One theory and it makes sense is that in small areas everyone either works for the schools or a relative does so they vote yes to all of them.
 
One of the negatives of living in a rural low population area with little or no industry nowhere to get tax money except real estate.My farm is in a pretty high populated county with
a lot of businesses of all types big and small so they pay the Lion's Share of the taxes pus its a place many come to retire build big houses to pay taxes on with no kids to send to school.
My place is right at 200 acres with 2 pretty good houses on it total tax bill is less than $2500 year.We have great 911 fire and rescue service plus a good police dept.Say what you want about
places like Walmart and Lowes but they pay a pile of money$ in taxes.Plus the fancy restaurants collect a pile$ in meals taxes.
 
In a small town of 444, once the school closes the grocery store closes soon after that. In a few years, most other stores close until only a convenience store, a bar, a farm co-op and maybe a bank branch or ATM are left. Property values fall, property tax revenues drop too. If the town is near a larger town it may survive as a bedroom community, if not it spirals into a rural ghetto of mostly dilapidated houses. That has already happened to too many dying towns in NW Iowa.
 
Are normal property taxes around one to three percent for residences, and one percent for businesses and farmland?
 
To answer your last question...no there is nothing wrong with you getting upset about this. Let me add to my previous post about getting involved. From watching my mother's involvement in her community, people will get upset when anyone disagrees or questions their plans. To be actively involved means being willing to make a few people mad. Most of us avoid confrontation (of the face to face variety). She was not trying to get power or make a buck off of her community, she was just trying to make it a better place to live. I said she made some enemies, but they were more adversaries than enemies. The real test of what people thought of her was that when she died it was the largest funeral in the recent history of the town. Her obit was front page in the county paper. And there was an editorial in a daily paper saying the state needed more citizens like her. And she never ran for or held public office. Everyday citizens can make a difference. My only point is that along with a few enemies, people that stand up for what is right and fair, are respected and appreciated, a lot more than the coffee shop second guessers.
 

Littlefarmer, the first question is: Were you at the meeting??? You are a member of the school district so it is your responsibility to be informed even if not involved. The next thing is to find out what state programs there are to protect farmland. Here in NH we have "current use" taxation for farmland. If the land is enrolled, the tax rate is much lower than for house lots or property on which houses can be built. New York state has a "farming exemption" for property that is being farmed. Sometimes these programs have to be "adopted" by the town at a town meeting. Go and research these programs at the state level and see what is available. If there is a program available mobilize the landowners to get it on the warrant and turn out and vote for it. You could possibly transfer a lot of the payment to the parents who voted it in.
 
Yes---I was at the (two) meetings that they had. And spoke against it. Strongly.

I'm not sure if Nebraska has the type of exemption program you mention. However will check it out. Unfortunately, Nebraska relies heavily on ag land taxes (60% of all property taxes in the state come from ag land, even though farmers are less than 10% of the population). The politicians like it that way. They are heavily taxing a group that doesn't have much voting power--numbers wise.
 
I'll add that a nearby school district within the last year had a similarly sized bond proposal for a new elementary school. There was much promotion but the voters said "No Thanks!" and it failed to pass.

While they could definitely stand to replace the building, the plans they had showed a building that was excessively complex and ornate from an architectural standpoint. I enjoy expressive architecture and am a fan of it, however, "ain't got the money" means "ain't got the money" and local taxpayers should not be saddled with the debt to fund the grand delusions of a couple of folks looking to leave some sort of visual legacy to be remembered by.

Spend the money in the classroom and not on the classroom building. As long as it's safe and meets ADA and other requirements there's nothing wrong with a plain old metal building.
 
Yes, that sounds like a lot of money. But what is the alternative? How far away is the nearest other school? Is it practical to consolidate with another school district and shut down your local school?

The point is not how much you are currently paying in taxes, but what the delta is for this new millage. If it's chump change, relatively speaking, and it keeps your local community from drying up, it might be well worth the expense. Your town has only 444 residents, but do you rely on any of the businesses or services there? Auto parts store? Grocery? Clinic? Post office? Will they all stick around after the school closes?
 
(quoted from post at 12:03:58 11/08/18) My school district just passed a $10 million tax bond to build a brand new high school. And we graduated 8 kids last May!

Total student body is 27 this year.

Living in Nebraska, where property taxes are EXTREMELY high, and hit farmers like me the hardest.

160 acre farm, non-irrigated, 1970 modest ranch home. And I'm paying over $12,000 per year already!

Town only has population of 444. Yet there's a clique of self-appointed "town boosters", who seem determined to "save the town" regardless.

Yet it still got voted for in the election. Is there something wrong with me, for being totally &@#$!! about this?
Click to expand...


Nope, you seem justified to me. IMO on things like school budgets where the only people paying are land owners, then only land owners should be allowed to vote on it.
 
It's the progressive trend today. Free everything for everybody, especially for mommies little darlings....nothing too good for them. We won't bother ourselves as to how to pay for it.......had the same bond thing happen here. State came out with a 50-50 deal. Locals saw all that money on the table and went for it. You know who voted it in....same ones that line up at the school to transport their kids when school busses run the roads empty!
 
Don't fall for a State Lottery to pay for education. NYS sold that to the rural areas, it was going to reduce taxes. For every dollar the lottery contrubuted to the education system, state education aid was cut a dollar. Net gain NOTHING! All the lottery did was take money from those who could least afford it and make a bunch of high paying political plumb jobs.

Yes, there is a lot of poor rural area in NYS.

Bill
 
Things seem to be a little more rational around here in Alberta. They are discussing closing the high school where my wife works which is the same size and in a town of the same size. The school would continue as a K-9 school. The students can travel to larger schools either 30 miles W or 30 miles SE. My 160 farm and 1500 sq ft double wide home in the same county has taxes around $2400, but this is spring wheat and canola country. Yes you are right to be ------. Can't fathom that tax load on this farm.
 
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