Manatee County school system right on sales tax extension, wrong on impact fee discounts

I will vote for the continuance of the half penny sales tax needed to finance our public school system. I do not agree with all of the current trends in our public school system, but that is a subject for another day.

Not meeting our fiscal responsibility to support a properly funded education system for our children and grandchildren is irresponsible at best. The $121,820,081 that will be lost over the next five years by not continuing the half penny tax can’t be made up for with PTA bake sales.

Having said the above, I have some simple questions for the superintendent and school board. On Aug. 24 there were three articles in the paper. One article stated that student enrollment grew by 650 students, 383 more than planned for. The next article stated that in the U.S., new home sales have climbed to their best level since 2007. The final article stated that if the half-cent sales tax is passed and all of the needed capital improvements are done, there will be a $40,703,482 shortfall over five years which will require debt financing, and that no action on impact fees was taken by the board at this meeting.

If the above debt is borrowed at a 4 percent interest rate, the interest on the debt for one year would be approximately $1,628,139. Why should the impact fees be phased in over three years when raising them to 100 percent now would reduce the need for debt?

Why should current and future taxpayers subsidize the builders profits? Would you incur personal debt if it were avoidable? Better yet, would you incur personal debt for the inurement of someone that has no relevance to your responsibilities?

This story was originally published September 2, 2016 at 9:29 PM with the headline "Manatee County school system right on sales tax extension, wrong on impact fee discounts."