After reading the recent article on the Dysart Unified School District override/bond issue [“DUSD debating override for voters,” April 29], I feel like I have to tell DUSD, “It’s not your money.”
They think the only justification for bleeding property owners is that “there is a need.” Of course, the need is always defined by the people who want the money. The fox is in charge of the henhouse, and if the fox thinks he needs more hens, so be it.
The subject of “needs” is always a subjective one. When one has to supply one’s own needs, the description of the need tends to change drastically. And that’s the problem. Since, DUSD’s needs will be subsidized by others, DUSD will try for a budgetary homerun. Government entities always tend toward spending profligacy.
From the day I received notice of the override/bond issue, I smelled a rat. DUSD, along with whatever bank they are in cahoots with, tried to pull a fast one when they gave voters only one month to decide on a bond that would burden property owners for over 20 years. One month to consider a vote on 20 years of additional property taxes? That’s not what I call fair play.
And this bond was no normal bond. Oh, no. When the highest grade U.S. government long bonds hover close to 1%, DUSD (along with its bank) was going to pay its bondholders 5% to start, with an option to go up to 8%.
But it gets even better for the bondholders. Unlike bondholders who buy conventional bonds, the DUSD bondholders have zero risk. Normally, when someone buys a bond, there is risk of default. With the DUSD bonds, the bondholder has no risk because the payback burden is not on DUSD.
With DUSD bonds, the payback burden is on property owners who, if they default on their property taxes, will end up in foreclosure. So, property owners have all the risk and bondholders have none. DUSD takes its money, bondholders take their 5% to 8% interest — and lucky property owners take it in the ear for 20-plus years. It’s difficult to believe that this sort of gouge is even legal.
There was a guy who submitted an article a while back. He thought the state legislature should offer property tax-breaks to seniors. If I were him, I wouldn’t hold my breath. It appears that the state’s business model for the public school system is to short-change the school districts and then let them nail property owners for the shortfall, with the shortfall being whatever it takes to fulfill the school districts’ vision of educational nirvana.
One final sleazy aspect of this whole override/bond issue is that the vote includes people who do not own property. People with no skin in the game get to influence an outcome that will cost them nothing.
The financial interests of property owners is only partially represented in the final vote tally. It seems to me that this is a form of “Taxation without Representation.”
If property owners are going to pay 100% of the tax burden, then property owners should be the only ones allowed to vote. I’m sure business owners whose businesses are currently in jeopardy will agree. Imagine paying a hefty property tax on a closed or crippled business just so DUSD can “meet all their needs.”
DUSD should expend its energy in finding ways to fund its “needs” in a fair and equitable way. If it’s not going to tax everyone, it shouldn’t tax anyone.
Someone needs to take the “property tax golden goose” away from DUSD. It’s time.
