Nine years ago, the Poway Unified School District passed a school bond for $105 million that is now costing the taxpayers nearly $1 billion to pay back. This is the perfect example of government incompetence and financial mismanagement.
Politicians are not accountants and when they propose bonds like this one, the public should refuse. These politicians have no idea how to responsibly spend money and it shows. Voters have been kept in the dark for far too long when it comes to state and local bond measures, as they are often not told about the cost to pay back the bond.
How are voters supposed to make informed decisions when the government refuses to tell them the whole story? This was an underhanded and reprehensible display of government failing to forward the needs and interests of the community. Now, Poway Unified wants to pass a new school bond for $448 million that would end up costing roughly $650 million to pay off. Clearly, no one has learned a lesson from the 2011 disaster.
Featured Photo by GotCredit via Flickr
This new bond would pay for increased security across campus in the form of electronic locks, fences, and security guards. It would also be used to improve school facilities and the sports field. The San Diego County Taxpayers Association has even endorsed this bond. How easily people forget about the mistakes of the past.
Nothing significant has changed since 2011, and the government did not magically become streamlined and efficient. This bond will surely end in disaster just like the one before it. Shortsighted people will endorse and vote for this bond measure and then when it comes back to bite them, they will conveniently forget that it was their fault it got passed.
The saying goes that hindsight is 20/20, but for once, why can’t foresight be 20/20? People have seen the results of the 2011 bond, but inexplicably still support this new measure. If we can’t learn from history then we are doomed to repeat our mistakes, just like we are doomed to pay for another billion-dollar bond over the next 30+ years.
