Hidden Costs of the 2019 Provo School Bond

At $245,000,000.00, this is the largest bond Provo School District has ever proposed (see how much you'd pay here). To put it into perspective, these are the debts we taxpayers of Provo City are currently paying off:

1. Rec Center, $28,260,000

2. City Center and Fire Station, $65,930,000

3. Cemetery Expansion, $1,901,000

4. iProvo, $18,325,000

5. Current PCSD Bond Debt, $114,315,000

TOTAL DEBT, $228,731,000

So this school bond would more than double our current debts. Investing in the education of our children is important, but there are far more affordable solutions.

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The bond also comes with costs not factored into the price tag.

Here are five hidden costs we worry about the most:

1. Bad timing. In 2014, taxpayers voted to bond for Provo High. If Timpview High is rebuilt within just a few years of Provo High and has the same projected life, future taxpayers will be hit with the cost of rebuilding both schools around the same time again. Why not prolong the life of Timpview, rebuild later, and even out the timing so that taxes stay more regular?

2. Interest. The total bond amount with interest, projected by Zions Public Finance, will be $327,805,858.00.

3. Social costs. This bond disproportionately hurts the poor and benefits the wealthy. PCSD would simultaneously move a school out of the low-income downtown area and build the most expensive high school to date in the higher-income northeast area. How is this equitable?

4. Infrastructure upgrades for a Footprinter Dixon. PCSD says it has lumped on-site and adjacent improvements into its $55m amount. However there are off-site improvements Provo City would have to do that are not included in the bond price. This has been covered extensively by the Save Dixon campaign. Read more about it here.

5. The price of renovating and maintaining the 1931 Dixon Middle School building on top of building and maintaining a new middle school building. The district has said that it's both unsafe for children now yet they want to hold onto the property and keep it functioning as a community center. If it's unsafe for school children, it's unsafe period. That means they'll need money to renovate it. They hope that some will come from their partner organizations but the $10m-50m needed to do that is a HUGE price to pay for an organization like Boys and Girls Club of Utah County with a reported $2.3m in total revenue for its 2018 operating year, or even United Way of Utah County with $4m in 2017. Where will all this money to renovate come from? Another bond? Higher taxes? Maybe they'll just abandon the idea and the building due to lack of resources. Then there's the added maintenance of keeping the building in operation. At Bond Info Nights, PCSD board members have said that Timpview costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to maintain. Adding a new building in west Provo and keeping the current one just adds to ongoing costs.

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Again, we support public education. But this bond has problems we can't ignore. Vote no. We deserve a better bond.