March Fourth

I’m new to the Union Public School District, I moved here just in time for a school bond vote. Tomorrow residents in Union Public Schools will vote on whether or not to pass a 19.4 million dollar bond.

I did a little research and decided to vote yes. I found out when I did research on Union in preparation for my move that Union spends less per student that the state average and less than TPS…or at least they appear to spend less. Gretchen Haas-Bethell, Executive Director for Communications of Union Public Schools, explained to me that Union is state funding poor, and so they appear to spend less per student. Union relies on their bonds to purchase many things that TPS gets with their state funding. You can find out the breakdown of items in this bond here.

Next I found out that the Union school bonds are on a 5 year cycle. Union contends that taxes will not be raised for 2 reasons: 1, the new bond replaces an old one, and 2, the tax base of Union is expanding so any increase in the cost of the bond from the one five years ago will be absorbed by the new tax payers in the district.
Here are the last 5 bond amounts.
Feb 13, 2007: $17,000,000
Feb 14, 2006: $15,200,000
Feb 8, 2005: $13,000,000
Feb 24, 2004: $17,000,000
Feb 11, 2003: $16,000,000

So this new bond is a couple million heavier than the 2003 bond which it replaces, but I buy the idea that all the new houses and business in the area will absorb the difference.

Lastly I thought it important to determine Union’s bond rating. They get an Aa2 rating from Moody’s and an AA rating from Standard & Poor’s. Moody's assigns bond credit ratings of Aaa, Aa, A, Baa, Ba, B, Caa, Ca, C, and Standard & Poor's AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB, B, CCC, CC, C, D. Moody’s can add a numerical modifier, 1 2 or 3, only Aaa and Aa1 are higher, for S&P AA+ and AAA. So Union has a great bond rating.

I didn't find anything that would convince me to vote no tomorrow, and since I moved into Union specifically for the schools I’ll keep the status quo. If you live in the union school district don’t forget to go and vote tomorrow.


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