Comment by msluyter

Comment by msluyter 5 days ago

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| Private schools are outrageously expensive.

Yes, and... In states where property taxes fund schools, there are basically two ways to pay for a good school: a) go to a private school, b) live in a school zone with high real estate values. At various points my wife and I calculated that 8 years at ~25k/yr tuition would work out to about the same as the ~200k house price delta we'd have to pay to move to a better school zone.

And I suppose option #3 is rationing, which is how some schools do it (our daughter is in a gifted academy where admission is limited via lottery.)

Dalewyn 4 days ago

>In states where property taxes fund schools, ... b) live in a school zone with high real estate values

Here's some tangential anecdata.

I'm in Oregon, the county I live in pays for the local schools through property taxes. More than half of the tax goes to the schools if I recall.

Anyway, that's not the fun part. The fun part is one of the schools needs(wants?) a new roof. Sounds reasonable, here are the unreasonable parts: They want to raise funds with additional taxes, because they refuse to budget and earmark money for it. They also said they need(want?) several million dollars to do it. The taxes would also be used by the county to buy school-issued bonds from the school to fund the new roof, rather than directly using the tax dollars.

Unsurprisingly, the county measure to introduce that new tax failed during the election in November with a resounding laugh.

The entire way our schools are operated begs some very hard questions.

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  • adamsb6 4 days ago

    Our local schools, like many around the country, spooled up new permanent programs in response to the influx of COVID funding which they always knew to be temporary.

    Now that the funding has gone away, they say they have a funding crisis, and will have to cut other things unless they can get the state to "adequately fund" them.

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  • mikeyouse 4 days ago

    What you’re describing is the completely normal way of funding capital projects… they presumably need to fund the improvements at once (the roofing contractors aren’t going to be paid over the next 15 years) and tax payers won’t want a huge spike in taxes so the district will sell bonds with a ~15 year horizon, taxpayers can have slightly higher taxes for 15 years, and the funds are available for improvements on day one.

    You seem to be under the impression that the school district has enough extra funding that they could just put tens of millions of dollars aside and complete the improvements as they come up, but can you imagine the shrieking that would erupt if they had a school board meeting and disclosed a capital improvement fund with millions of dollars in it? People would demand that their taxes be lowered post haste since it’s clear the schools don’t need all the money they’re being given.

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    • Dalewyn 4 days ago

      Something like a new roof is an expense known literally years in advance. You know when something will be due for repair or replacement due to reaching the end of design and/or useful life. The proper way to handle that kind of expense is to set aside some money every year in the budget toward an earmarked fund until you have enough when time comes to buy a new roof.

      So no, I (and clearly most of the voters) heartily rejected the new tax proposal. Fiscal discipline before any more or new taxes.

      Also: There is no reasonable, commonly understandable way a new roof costs several million dollars. Forget where the money could come from, the demand itself is questionable. As a taxpayer I want to see the school's entire fiscal records, including data that might not be public, if they want that kind of money for what should be a regular maintenance job.

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      • tzs 4 days ago

        So basically you think taxes should have been set higher a long time ago so they would have a yearly surplus that could have been saved up to pay for a new roof?

        I don't see why this is preferable to lower taxes that just cover operations and short term maintenance, with separate bond issues to play for things like new roofs which are expensive but only come up ever 20 to 30 years.

        There is quite a bit of variability in how long a roof lasts, because it can be greatly affected by weather and climate and accidents. With the "save for it out of a surplus" approach you'd need enough surplus so that you'll be ready if it turns out your current roof needs replacing on the low side of the roof lifetime range.

        But then what happens when you reach that and the roof turns out to actually still be fine? Do you just keep adding each years surplus to the roof fund? I bet taxpayers wouldn't like that. They'd want taxes to be lowered to get rid of the surplus.

        But then when you do replace the roof you'd have to raise taxes back to what they were to start building the fund for the next roof. So you still end up with the pattern being higher taxes for several years after a roof is installed and then lower taxes from then until it is time for the next new roof.

        That's the same pattern you end up with under the "use a bond issue to pay for a roof when needed" approach.

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        • Dalewyn 4 days ago

          >So basically you think taxes should have been set higher a long time ago so they would have a yearly surplus that could have been saved up to pay for a new roof?

          Yes.

          Simply put: If you can't or won't budget+save for a known future expense, I'm not giving you money to pay for it when it comes knocking.

          >But then what happens when you reach that and the roof turns out to actually still be fine?

          Save what's in there for when the roof really hits end of usable life and either: A) Keep adding to the fund if it's justifiable, or B) Remove the line item from the budget and reduce or reallocate the budget accordingly.

          We're not talking about RNGesus throwing down a randomass thunderbolt at the school and blasting a randomass hole through it on a randomass Thursday. We know reasonably when the roof will need replacing for an absolute fact, and at least a ballpark estimate how much it will cost.

          Fiscal discipline goes a long way to convincing me to pay (more) taxes.

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      • ty6853 4 days ago

        Lol never worked construction for government gigs? I was once hired on as a laborer for a city government funded arts building. The construction boss had to buy a very expensive and gawdy table from the mayor's kids. The government was paying themselves. It's likely 30% roof and 70% old boys network of hiring select people for favors.

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        • Dalewyn 4 days ago

          I'm quite aware what the several million buckeroos are actually "needed" for, and I'm all the more vindicated in telling the school and county to get fucking bent.

          Unfortunate that kids have to indirectly get caught in the crossfire, but such is life.

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cloverich 5 days ago

I did the same math comparing portland with suburb schools (around portland and seattle) and came to the same conclusion. But one other thought is when the money goes to the mortgage, you get to keep the wealth after (assuming you sell to downsize at some point).

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  • vel0city 5 days ago

    More money in the mortgage principal you theoretically keep when you later downsize housing, but you also will probably spend a good bit more in taxes as well.

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    • cloverich 5 days ago

      Yes, good to do the calculation properly before making the decision if its motivated primarily by finances; sometimes the outcome can be surprising. Ironically speaking specifically about Portland, you'll pay _less_ in taxes moving to e.g. Washington schools in addition to getting better schools. But I think this is likely a special case.

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      • vel0city 5 days ago

        Yes, I definitely agree, YMMV, tax situations and school district quality vary greatly depending on specifics.

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thayne 4 days ago

IME private schools also tend to be in more expensive areas, so you will either still have to pay more for housing, or spend a lot of time and transportation costs to get between home and school. Plus friends from school will live further away.

And of course many people don't have enough money for private school or to move to a good school district.

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  • 9991 4 days ago

    > And of course many people don't have enough money for private school or to move to a good school district.

    That's the whole point. Keeps out the riff-raff.

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    • cootsnuck 4 days ago

      No need to hide behind euphemism. Just say what you mean.

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Yoric 5 days ago

Yeah, I moved house recently. The #1 factor for picking the house was the good high school 500m away.

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