Students rarely go to school in little red schoolhouses any more. Modern metro area schools are vastly larger, and modern education requires state-of-the-art facilities. Ballot Issue 5A would fund facilities projects throughout BVSD. {Photo by Don Williams}
Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) Ballot Issue 5A, at its simplest, would increase property taxes in the BVSD district for a $350 million bond issue, designed to finance two new school buildings and capital improvements to a number of existing schools in BVSD. The initial cost to residential property owners would be about $118 a year, or $9.83 a month, for a home valued at $600,000. Residential property will be assessed for tax purposes at 6.765% of the home’s value for the 2023 tax year, while non-residential property will be at 27.9% for 2023, so non-residential property owners will pay about four times the assessment rate residential property owners pay.
Before getting too deeply into costs, it’s important to consider the capital improvement projects BVSD is planning into the future. I will strongly recommend reading BVSD’s Critical Needs Assessment document available at this link, and there are also video presentations available at this Critical Needs webpage. For those short on time, here are some highlights of BVSD needs that 5A funding could address:
- Replacement of the New Vista High School building ($36 million)
- New elementary school building in Erie ($40 million)
- Major repairs and renovations at schools located throughout the district (I’m only listing projects at $2 million and up for brevity) at:
o Alicia Sanchez Elementary in Lafayette ($2.1 million)
o Angevine Middle School in Lafayette ($2.6 million)
o Arapahoe Ridge High School in Boulder ($3.6 million)
o Bear Creek Elementary in Boulder ($2.3 million)
o Boulder High School ($12.3 million)
o Broomfield Heights Middle School ($2.4 million)
o Broomfield High School ($12.1 million)
o Casey Middle School in Boulder ($2.1 million)
o Centaurus High School in Lafayette ($10.4 million)
o Centennial Middle School in Boulder ($5.4 million)
o Community Montessori Elementary in Boulder ($2.5 million)
o Eisenhower Elementary in Boulder ($3.1 million)
o Eldorado PK-8 in Superior ($2.8 million)
o Escuela Bilingue Pioneer in Lafayette ($3.5 million)
o Fairview High School in Boulder ($12.4 million)
o Foothill Elementary in Boulder ($3.1 million)
o Heatherwood Elementary in Boulder ($3.3 million)
o Kohl Elementary in Broomfield ($3.7 million)
o Louisville Middle School ($2.1 million)
o Manhattan Middle School in Boulder ($2.7 million)
o Monarch High School in Louisville ($10.5 million)
o Monarch PK-8 in Louisville ($2.6 million)
o Nederland Middle/Senior High ($7.7 million)
o Peak to Peak Charter in Lafayette ($10.7 million)
o Platt Middle School in Boulder ($3.7 million)
Again, I’ll highly recommend skimming the Critical Needs Assessment document to learn more detail about BVSD’s plans beyond the overall price tag of projects at any school. But for those pressed for time, here’s an outline of what BVSD is planning for Boulder High School as an example.
Repayment Cost and Existing Debt
Ballot measures like this are called “bond issues” because BVSD would have bonding capacity to authorize projects, issue bonds, and pay the principal back over a period of time with interest. Under the Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), entities proposing measures like this have to calculate a maximum repayment amount based on principal plus interest. BVSD might or might not spend the entire $714 million repayment figure you’ll see in the 3A ballot title, since interest rates might fluctuate and BVSD might be able to refinance, but there’s a cap there for the voters’ information.
BVSD already has debt from bonds of the past. As of June 30, 2021, the district reported general obligation bond indebtedness of $771,020,000, capital leases of $1,085,529, and long-term obligations for compensated absences of $11,411,707. The annual principal and interest payments for fiscal year 2021 are $57,458,900. The district would pay the last scheduled principal payment of existing debt (not counting 5A) on December 1, 2049, as shown below.
Other Recent and Not-So-Recent BVSD Ballot Measures
Colorado law allows local school districts to ask voters to approve override funding for their district through an additional mill levy. BVSD voters approved such overrides in 2016, 2010, 2005, 2002, 1998, and 1991. The 2016 Ballot Issue 3A passed by 69,241 (61.13%) to 44,023 (38.87%).
Voters also approved a bond measure in 2014, as that year’s Ballot Issue 3A passed 54,911 (62.58%) to 32,828 (37.42%). This was for the “Building for Student Success” program, and according to BVSD the $677 million program was 97 percent complete in 2022. About $13.3 million from this project was designated to fund design and help pay for construction of the New Vista building.
Could BVSD Pay For Improvements In Other Ways?
Over the years, I’ve seen questions about funding for schools basically asking “Why are we just throwing money at schools?,” or “Do you really expect us to pay for educating our children with bake sales?,” along with better-detailed questions and statements in between the poles.
I’m not going to try to answer the question I posed in the headline to this section. I believe it’s a fact that modern metro-area school budgets are typically large and definitely complex. Those who really want to understand school budgets should pore through budget documents and probably get involved with BVSD issues at a higher level.
But I will share a link to BVSD’s webpage including budget documents going back to the year 2000, plus the chart below showing a basic budget breakdown by individual funds for 2022. Quality opinions require spending actual time on the issue.
Pro:
- Students, teacher, staff, and parents alike should expect functional, safe, and high-quality school facilities, and 5A would help get projects completed.
- Projects envisioned in the Critical Needs document are located geographically throughout the BVSD district, so most broader communities would get some level of facility improvements.
- Bonding allows new projects to get started sooner than they would without bonding, and it’s quite normal for larger projects to be financed rather than paid for up-front.
- School facilities needs have changed over time, and the 5A projects include upgrades to modernize facilities to meet current needs.
Con:
- 5A is a property tax increase for homeowners, and non-residential property owners pay a much higher tax rate. This will burden homeowners and commercial property owners alike for many years.
- It would add a lot of debt to BVSD’s balance sheet, and it’s already carrying substantial debt.
- BVSD taxpayers already approved other recent ballot measures to fund local schools, as recently as 2016 and also in 2014.
- Property values are increasing to the point at which the State of Colorado just passed a temporary property tax decrease (SB 22-238) to keep property owners from being too heavily burdened. Why increase property tax burdens now?
Richard’s Take
I will support this ballot measure, even though it undoubtedly has a price tag. Others might not want to pony up at this point, and I get that.
I really don’t want to get into comparing 5A with the other five tax measures that voters in the City of Boulder will see on their 2022 ballot. But even though people who really know me understand that I’m basically frustratingly frugal, I’ve also co-sponsored a statewide $3 billion tax increase for schools in 2011 through Proposition 103 (with far, far, far more credit to former state Sen. Rollie Heath than to myself). My reasons for supporting Prop 103 only grew as I learned more about education funding in Colorado, and some of them are pertinent to my thoughts on 5A.
In general, it would not be a stretch to say the public school system is like a parenting structure for youth from perhaps age 5-17, although of course no school can replace the love and pure attention parents give their children. But students with at least decent attendance records spend an incredible amount of time in their school environments.
Schools provide education that will help students move on, better able to function in the next phases in their lives – whether it’s higher education, a role in the workforce, or raising a family. While I can’t claim school security is perfect, it’s extensive and important since parents entrust the literal safety of their children to their local school districts. Schools feed many students on-site (also see Prop FF from 2022); they provide health and counseling services; it’s where many students experience extra-curricular activities; plus there are the social aspects of forming friendships, learning to work in team settings, and gaining perspective from spending time with wide ranges of types of people.
But my paragraph above isn’t really directly about 5A. I could absolutely vote against a school bond issue if I didn’t think it was for good purposes.
Again, I’ll highly recommend at least skimming the BVSD Critical Needs Assessment document to see what the district has in mind for capital improvements. Personally, I’ve attended school in a building that had long since outlived its usefulness, and have no doubt that it’s time to replace the 70-year-old New Vista building. I expect that most readers of my Election Guide will be from the City of Boulder, but BVSD covers the City plus much of Boulder County and into Broomfield, and the sheer size of the district is part of the reason for an admittedly eye-catching $350 million bond measure. Because it’s getting tough to afford housing in Boulder, some families have little choice but to live in nearby cities or towns, and this has all been a long way of saying I have no doubt there is a need for a new school in Erie.
Between New Vista and the new Erie school, the two projects alone cover more than 20% of the overall cost of 5A objectives. Most buildings of nearly any type need maintenance or updating from time to time, and with schools in general key projects might be in the interest of student safety, access to buildings for people with disabilities, or plain old modernization to meet state-of-the-art educational needs.
No doubt, I have friends who are concerned about their property tax bills, and I don’t think they’re kidding or whining. With increases of property values in Boulder and surrounding areas come increased property taxes, and the State of Colorado actually passed a temporary property tax decrease this year to stave off proposed and drafted ballot initiatives that would have cut property taxes even deeper than the temporary state bill. I still believe schools are a core function of a high-quality society, and even though I’m not crazy about a tax increase either I will be voting for 5A, but I also support a serious statewide and/or local discussion about property tax burdens moving forward.
I also have friends who are concerned about BVSD’s debt limits, and how 5A would allow the district to take on a substantial amount of debt beyond what it already carries. That’s a concern for me too – however, the district’s revenue from local property taxes is also substantial. Property values in BVSD have generally been doing nothing but increasing since at least the “Great Recession” of 2008, and even if City of Boulder population has been relatively stable in recent years, population and housing starts have been increasing in other BVSD cities and towns. I have a hard time imagining BVSD being unable to pay down its debt even if 5A passes, and remember, repayments are typically scheduled out over decades of time. But in fairness – recessions happen.
For better or worse, gone are the days of most students learning in a little red single-room schoolhouse. Good education and student safety can depend on the quality of facilities, plus construction costs are typically increasing, so I won’t have a problem voting for 5A even if I personally like occasionally fixing things with duct tape.
