Half of the bond won’t fix identified facility needs. The financing scheme causes $200 million in wasted interest payments. We will be paying for additional excess capacity, turf fields and second gyms. Our children will be paying 3 times what we pay.
Do we need the capacity?
- Enrollment in District schools has been flat for nearly a decade
- There are over 15,000 empty seats in Jeffco Schools today
- 2000 additional seats have been added in west Jeffco at new charter schools and Candelas and Sierra
- We are paying to build 120 additional classrooms, room for 3000 students
- Zerger elementary and the old Sobesky both are empty and unused
Why is it so expensive?
- Our payments will triple from initial payments of $20 million a year to over $70 million a year
- The large initial underpayments create 200 MILLION DOLLARS in interest payments that won’t to improving schools
- The largest payments will be over $70 Million a year – three and a half times what they are discussing
What will this cost homeowners?
- We pay about 42 mills to support the general operating of the school district today. 3A will add about four mills or will increase the number of mills by 10%.
- We pay about 7 mills for facilities and capital investments today. 3B when full payments are being made will cost us about $72 million a year or 10 mills, that is more than a 50% increase in the number of mills we pay today
- The total cost to the average residential home owner is not $4.12 a month. When making full payments we will be paying about 3 times the costs the district is using.
- The underpayment scheme causes a significant understatement of the actual costs to taxpayers
What will this cost businesses?
- A business with a taxable real estate value of $4 million will pay $25,000 a year when the full payments kick in
- The underpayment scheme causes a significant understatement of the actual costs to taxpayers