Pencils and paper should be free

Gschwind

Here we are facing another school year. Thank God.....my days of having school age children are over but I have seven grandchildren which I constantly dote over and worry about.

How many of us are really worried about where our school system is going? I begin to wonder when I realize that we are still experiencing such quick growth spurts not just in Santa Rosa County but in most of the Northwest Florida counties. Amazingly enough most of our counties are still borrowing to build schools through school bonds and receiving hardly any in their annual budgets from within their taxing authority limits. How long can this borrowing go on? The last school built in Santa Rosa county cost approximately $18 million and it was an elementary school, count on a High School to cost a bit more due to the need for athletic stadiums and other such facilities. When one considers that in one newly approved subdivision alone we have 9,800 dwellings (Jubilee) and with an average of .5 school age children per dwelling this comes to 4,900 children total requiring about 5.44 schools since we limit them to 900 students apiece this would come to approximately $100 million just for the school age children in one subdivision in Santa Rosa County. This borrowed money at 4 percent is $4 million annually through the life of the bond. Considering bonds become due after 30 years on average, this is $120 million in interest alone not even counting the original $100 million that was borrowed over the life of the loan....what a wonderful gi ft to our children and grandchildren!

Do we really want to continue borrowing? Dr Tony Apap and other members of the Concerned Citizens for Better Government presented these figures to local school authorities in an effort to convince them that charging at least $6,000 in impact fees for schools per dwelling (I say $8,000 is not entirely out of line) would help add to the state and federal funds required to build these schools on a cash basis and not burden our children and grandchildren with this enormous debt. Fortunately they received the information favorably considering most counties in high growth areas in southern Florida have been doing this for decades with the highest being Collier County that charges a whopping $10,099 in school impact fees per dwelling and most such as Polk and Osceola charge an average of $8,000 to $9,000 per dwelling which is a far cry from our modest suggestion of $6,000.

I guess since I was around during the lottery debates and votes of the late 80's I remember the promises (false of course) that the lottery would be a boon to state and county education. We should have known then that if money is not put in escrow or a special earmarked account rather than straight in the general fund where it is subject to a free-for-all grab, that the schools would see very little of that money. If we could only amend our lottery laws.....Georgia learned a lesson from us and their lottery money all goes straight into the education system....as a result every school age child in Georgia can even get a free college education financed by the state lottery. Boy, did we go wrong! I wish someone out there could figure out how we can get our state to fix it so we get what was promised back in '89!

I am so embarrassed to see these "cram the van" campaigns for supplies that should be no problem for us. Every year the schools initiate begging campaigns for paper and pencils and I find this ludicrous. I also find the fact that in elementary school if a parent buys supplies for their children they are immediately confiscated by teachers in classrooms for the good of the whole classroom and the less fortunate and in the name of sharing. Is this their first exposure to Marx doctrine of wealth redistribution? I think so. I know there are less fortunate, I was one of them as a single father raising my kids but knew that if I could afford a TV and a car, I could certainly afford pencils and paper for my kids. I travel both our local counties constantly and am in less fortunate neighborhoods and homes and I have yet to meet a less fortunate family without a car or TV. Is this the lesson we want to teach? I think not! Pencils and paper at least, should be provided as they were in my day in the classrooms. As far as I'm concerned that's the price of doing business in the school system.

With funding shortages and tax cuts looming in the near future, perhaps the county commissions should also be considering impact fees as a reasonable manner with which to finance our infrastructure needs in high growth areas rather than punishing current residents through taxation and our offspring through bond issues and deficit spending. Before you counter with the supposition that impact fees will slow down development, just understand that the vast majority of other counties in Florida that were and are experiencing similar high growth only experienced a small speed bump on their road to expansion which was barely noticeable in their growth statistics. Think about it, the time for talk is just about over. I only mentioned a couple ideas, I'm sure there are those of you out there that haven't gotten involved that have the solutions we need brought forward, so do it! Go to your county commission meetings and speak and attend school board meetings and address them with your ideas! We need change and we need it now.