Fueling Suburban Sprawl: Corporate School Bond Election Donors

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Fueling Suburban Sprawl: Corporate School Bond Election Donors

The soliciting of support for School Bond issues from Home-Builders, Developers, Contractors, Sub-contractors and Vendors is part of a developmental and urban planning model that, as I understand it, many responsible Builders and Developers are shying away from these days. Aside from the obvious, potential conflicts of interest for both the "clients" (School Boards and Administrators) should those same contributors then bid for and/or be rewarded contracts engendered by the very projects supported in the Bond Issues, it fuels low-density suburban sprawl and all the associated negative environmental and social impacts. Districts have little or no incentive to require optimal enrollment configurations, nor are architects and contractors encouraged to design and build facilities that meet those configurations in an efficient and cost-effective manner that can stand the test of time and the inevitable demographic shifts. It is essentially another manifestation of a throw-away "culture of death," as demonstrated by the depopulation and deterioration of our older suburban areas (look at Walzem Road near Windcrest in San Antonio, for example), while new areas of the countryside continue to be developed in a haphazard manner. What happens when these new areas begin to age as well??

The fact of the matter is, birth rates in the United States and the western world as a whole are continuing to drop alarmingly. The population of the United States will actually begin to drop toward the middle of the 21^st Century. Were it not for immigration, this trend would begin even sooner (ie, 2025). Much of the nationwide school building boom in the past decade or so has been a result of

The need to renovate or replace buildings constructed during the Baby Boom

The need for new facilities outright as a result of a "Baby Boomlet," as the children of the Boomers go through the system

The suburbanization of outlying rural areas near metropolitan areas and along major transportation corridors (basically what has happened with Judson and several other District along the I-35 corridor in the past 30 years or so).

What happens when the "Baby Bustlet" begins (as a result of the overall decline in birth rates)?? If we build school facilities that, in the long run, are too large and too expensive, we will eventually be stuck with less than optimal facility occupancy rates, and at the same time younger taxpaying families will be saddled with much higher overall tax rates as they support an aging population. Bond Debt Service Taxes spent inappropriately, inefficiently, and irresponsibly is money that will not be used intelligently in the classroom. In other words, Bond Packages and Bond Construction projects must be developed and executed intelligently, or else we will literally be "paying" for our mistakes later----and our children will be the ones to suffer the most for this. The same could be said for Bond Election campaigns. "Buying" elections by exchanging promises or threats between Contractors, Sub-Contractors, Vendors, Builders and Developers that cannot (or perhaps should not) in the end be lived up to will lead to the same phenomena mentioned w/r Bond Packages and Bond Construction. This also includes the "Educational-Industrial Complex" existing between public school districts and developers, as the latter frequently contribute to a Bond Election in return for the siting of a campus near some new area of the countryside soon to be carved up with housing subdivisons that either may or may not be occupied in a timely manner (subject to economic and other unpredictable trends and factors).

Although, in Texas, State aid such as the Existing Debt Allotment (EDA) program makes Bond Debt relief available to Districts like Judson, the problem with the way it’s structured lies in the fact that the amount of aid is determined by how much local tax effort is put forward in retiring existing debt. Unfortunately, this gives Districts an incentive to have large-dollar Bond Packages, and sell as many Bonds all at once as possible, and then raise the tax rate to a very high level for a year or so, in order to then get as much EDA money as possible from the State. This creates an inflationary spiral of the worst kind because:

There is a lot of construction truly needing to be done, especially in high-growth areas

This will increase the Construction Inflation (also known as project cost escalation) factors, which can increase the cost of a project even as it proceeds. The longer (or larger) the project is, the greater the chance that the project may end up over-budget, just as a result of escalating Inflationary increases.

Inefficiently or poorly conceived projects done on a widespread basis from District to District will hasten the need for even more construction later, which will start the cycle all over again.

Before long, what you’ll probably see is the State taking a greater role in reviewing school construction projects. I’m serious. This is already done in places such as California (to probably name only a few), where plans and designs must be approved by the State's Office of Public School Construction. The actual PROJECT (the facility design; etc) must be reviewed by the State before a District can proceed. I would imagine that one of the reasons this is done is because so much of the cost recovery for the project depends on some kind of relief from the State, and the State, of course, will ostensibly always try to show that it is giving relief to projects and facilities that are actually needed and, above all designed efficiently, intelligently, and appropriately. This is fine and dandy, but it once again relinquishes local control, and probably lengthens the time before projects can actually begin, all the time certain overcrowding and facility-aging issues continue to fester.

What will also hasten this process of a loss of local control is the seemingly wide-open nature of Bond Election Campaign financial support, in which those who stand to benefit directly from a resultant construction program following a successful Election contribute to "Vote Yes" campaigns. Unfortunately, this can lend itself to the possibility of any Bond Project contracts being awarded to literally the highest bidders (or donors---both, actually). What is so ironic is that this plethora of potential inefficiencies (ie, poorly conceived packages engendering more frequent follow-on Bond Programs, mixed with the potential behavior of contractors, architects, and developers in donating to school election campaigns and then bidding on resultant projects on the one hand, and School Board and Administrative staffs in awarding potentially-bloated contracts to such donors on the other) will only hasten the day in which a necessity of and/or outcry for public school campaign finance reform, combined with a majority of public school Bond Debt retirement funds coming from the State instead of local Interest and Sinking taxes, will result in a loss of local control. All as a result of taxpayers and parents failing to more closely scrutinize the long range planning, fiscal, and business behavior of their local School Boards and Administrations, and the people doing business with them. The loss of control is something that the contractors, architects, and developers will not be very happy with either. Which is another way of saying they need to change their attitude and approach toward doing business with public school districts. Ditto for Board Members and Adminstrative staff, and all other would-be community "leaders" heading up pro-bond committees. They can say all they want that "it's for the kids." Most assuredly, however, it ISN'T. And, it will be their parents who will be "paying" for such an approach, several times over, especially, as they also support a greying population and, due to declining birthrates and hence declining enrollments, also have to pay Interest and Sinking Taxes for oversized school facilities. Even if the State provides for Bond Debt relief, they'll still be paying, one way or the other, for even that. And that doesn't include the impact of economic externalities associated with the crumbling infrastructures, declining property values, and depopulation of our older rural-suburban areas.

2001 Judson ISD Bond Issue: Builders, Contractors, Developers, Vendors Give $48000