Mesa Public Schools is ready to ask the already struggling residents of Mesa to dig a little deeper into their pockets to the tune of $250 million dollars. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have much more room to dig. I'm afraid the next swing of the pick and I will go right through my pockets.
Of the last bond package which the school did in 2005 which was 212 million dollars, they are going to use the last remaining 1.9 million dollars to demolish the old Mesa Junior High. Something about using bond money for demolition of a school strikes me as kind of funny, it just doesn't feel right to use tax payer money to destroy rather than to build.
MPS says they need the money to make repairs to buildings and to upgrade the technology at the schools. I have a problem with that on a couple of fronts. First the bond repayment period will extend beyond the useful life of the technology and upgrades they will be buying. That is just bad money management, rule #1 of good money management is that the item you finance should give a return beyond the finance period and not by just one year. Technology is basically technology is obsolete after a couple of years not 20 or 30 years.
Next why is Mesa Schools using bond money for maintenance? I would think that a well planned out budget for Mesa Public Schools would included a line item for long term maintenance. Did someone forget to add a line item for that? If they did the budget director should be fired.
For years Mesa Public Schools has played loose with tax payer money and now it is time to Mesa residents to say NO to this next round of bonds. Let the economy recover and let me and you find a job before you stick it to us again.
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