On Monday, July 30 at 6pm City Council, the School Board, and the Mayor are meeting for the Education Compact quarterly joint meeting at the Main Richmond Public Library (101 East Franklin Street).
One big question is if the Mayor and other leaders who ran and were elected on ‘Education’ platforms will continue to champion the Tom Farrell coliseum plan while ignoring the Put Schools First movement. No doubt, we will hear the same tired and false arguments about how Richmond needs to increase its tax base BEFORE modernizing schools. Don’t fall for them. Take note of what is being financed before school modernization, and who proposes what. Another question is what political candidates will eventually emerge to challenge the leaders who don’t want to put schools first.
Meanwhile, from former Chairperson of the Democratic Party of Virginia and local activist Paul Goldman, on school modernization financing:
Part (1): STATE LEVEL. Assuming the $250 million annual projection is accurate, it is being both principled and pragmatic to propose using $150 million of the $250 million to support the debt service on the first-ever state K-12 school bond issue. To repeat: These are not funds from a new tax but merely from taxes currently owed yet knowingly not paid. Thus both parties can support this approach without violating any platform promises. Part (2): LOCAL LEVEL. Since this is a first-ever proposal, it makes sense to ask localities – legally responsible for local school maintenance and modernization – to match $100 million from this historic state contribution. I have studied local financial resources. This is a very fair number to use with accomations for certain distressed localities. Part (3): Brown II Mandate: The fact Virginia refused or failed, depending on your point of view, to live up to the state’s responsibility under the long overlooked maintenance and modernization part of the decision doesn’t justify continuing to avoid responsibility 63 years later! Indeed, the opposite imperative is more to the point. In that regard, the state can afford to allocate $150 million annually to fix school facilities covered by that case but never properly addressed.
THE BOND ISSUE MATH:’
Part (1) can pay debt service for roughly a $ 3 billion dollar 30 year bond issue at current rates. Part (2) can pay debt service for roughly another $ 2 billion and Part (3) can pay debt service for roughly an additional $3 billion. Added together: $8 billion potential. The plan outline assumes the state will be backing everything and that certain laws will be amended accordingly. Thus a bipartisan consensus is possible to develop an historic state/local effort to address the “crumbling” school facility crisis distressing Governor Northam. I have conceived it as a pilot program, requiring state and localities to work together here. Should the Kaine-Evans legislation pass, the dramatic reduction in local school modernization costs for many projects would allow the bond issue contemplated here to be more far reaching.
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The key point: All three parts are independent by design . Part 1 is the base of any state initiative. It can pass stand alone. Part II is my judgment of a likely political decision to have a match type requiremeant with consideration for hard pressed areas. Part III is my own view that a Brown II initiative is both orally and historically justified/right thing to do and would be enactable you got pervious consensus for Parts 1 and 2. Like any other bold out of the box idea, it is a work in progress, designed for improvement by others. But progress requires someone doing the work to get it out there so the discussion has a concrete reference point. Improvements welcomed!