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A high school costs $81M to build?!

JEDI

JEDI

Lifer
northern VA

received in the mail about a referendum for election day for $81M in bonds to plan, build, and equip a new high school. it's 20yr Bonds @5% interest rate.

$81M??!?!
another WTF is w/todays near 0% interest rates, why the hell are they offering 5%?

why am i mad? us homeowners are footing the bill!
it will increase in my property taxes and i have no kids (nor do i want kids)! 😡
substidizing some non-homeowner's family's brood of kids :thumbsdown:
 
JEDI said:
substidizing some non-homeowner's family's brood of kids :thumbsdown:
Click to expand...

It's a public good. keeping the generations below you educated and employable is what keeps you, and this country wealthy.

get the fuck over it.

even the most jaded conservadouche understands that.
 
The high school I went to added like 8-10 rooms for way more than that.
Of course it was an overall renovation as well as there was asbestos and other fun stuff.

But yeah educational facilities tend to be very expensive.
 
Build schools or deal with more morons... your choice

Plus it's planning, building, AND equipping. All desks, books, kitchen equipment, gym equipment, computers, etc. Adds up fast.
 
seems normal, they renovated the HS i went to the year after i graduated, pretty sure it was 50 million ish and its not a big school. under 1k students, actually prob under 800. middle school reno cost about the same,
 
zinfamous said:
It's a public good. keeping the generations below you educated and employable is what keeps you, and this country wealthy.

get the fuck over it.

even the most jaded conservadouche understands that.
Click to expand...

Education of kids is primarily the responsibility of the parents.

I have no problem helping out IF the school system is worth a crap. The one from my hometown was and still is pretty garbage, and not due to a lack of facilities or funds, they just suck. But when it is in a forced measure (property taxes) that if I didn't pay they confiscate my home, well, that's what burns me.

Far too many people simply rent and vote for all the levies because "others are paying for it, not me haha!" I despise those people.
 
JEDI said:
$81M??!?!
another WTF is w/todays near 0% interest rates, why the hell are they offering 5%?
Click to expand...

0% is for risk free (aka short term US Treasury Bills) debt. Long term muni bonds are not as safe.

$81m is probably because of land costs & high labor costs in NoVA.
 
Sounds like another 5000 student mega HS that needs it's own police force and psychiatric staff. When do you suppose we'll learn not to build huge HS above the critical mass level?
 
JEDI said:
northern VA

received in the mail about a referendum for election day for $81M in bonds to plan, build, and equip a new high school. it's 20yr Bonds @5% interest rate.

$81M??!?!
another WTF is w/todays near 0% interest rates, why the hell are they offering 5%?

why am i mad? us homeowners are footing the bill!
it will increase in my property taxes and i have no kids (nor do i want kids)! 😡
substidizing some non-homeowner's family's brood of kids :thumbsdown:
Click to expand...

Its also teacher salaries, long-term maintenance, etc.

So with muni bankruptcies on the rise, beware of whoever may be trying to offload insolvent debt onto retail investors.

Anyway state budgets used to be able to cover it. The states themselves CANNOT borrow money and thus they force the school system to borrow the money. Of course if the school system can't afford it now in the budget, what makes them think they will be able to afford it later + interest on said budget is beyond me. More of your typical unsustainable BS.
 
Could be done cheaper. Sea Cans could be used to build a functional school, but it wouldn't look pretty and everyone would feel like a cheapass. So it's all nonsense spending. Amenities/niceties etc that most likely weren't needed. Get a bunch of older or cheap computers, Khan Academy it up and I'm pretty sure you could build and run a functional school at a fraction of the costs.
 
Newest local high school around here cost just under $100 million if i remember correctly. Opened 3 years ago and I believe came in under budget slightly.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Sounds like another 5000 student mega HS that needs it's own police force and psychiatric staff. When do you suppose we'll learn not to build huge HS above the critical mass level?
Click to expand...

At that cost it's probably for not more than ~1k -1.5k student.
Also, what do you consider the critical student population?
 
$58 million for the high school that just opened up this past year here. Services ~1000 students. We got interest free bonds from federal stimulus money though.
 
Matthiasa said:
At that cost it's probably for not more than ~1k -1.5k student.
Also, what do you consider the critical student population?
Click to expand...

Anything above 400 students (less in very poor neighborhoods) is above critical mass. The ONLY thing that keeps the lid on teen craziness is peer pressure. Teachers, admins and, students who all know everyone is the single greatest weapon we have against the insanity of shootings, suicides and, life changing crime.
 
a local town near me just built a huge 400k /sq ft 110+ million school (just read cost could ballon up to 200 million). it is large enough to support 4-5k students. the projected student body in 5 years would be 3500-4300 students.

now the issues..

Last years enrollment was 1593. the company that did the "projection" was employed by the company who was giving bids for the school. many of the smaller company's are owned by family members on the board for outrageous prices.

there have been multiple student projections. they range fro 1200-2200. in witch case the old high school would still have worked. either way the new school is twice as large as really needed.

They built it as a ONE STORY. ITS FUCKING HUGE. they are finding students don't have time to get from class to class.

with the economy being fucked tax's are shooting up.

there is more but can't remember..heh


this is a town that is majorly fucked up. The voting board is so fucking currupt its insane. a few years ago 1 of teh members son complained that there was nowhere (but the lagoon) to play hockey. so the city voted to put in a Ice skating rink at the cost of $300k it sat empty except for hockey practice...then shut down a year latter

the city voted to replace/upgrade ALL the store fronts in downtown! guess who owns the majority of the business downtown? yeah the board...they voted to spend $3-6 million to do it. Downtown is empty unless you want to go to a porn store or a bar.

they WANTED to spend $1 million on a sidewalk that went nowhere. it was between 2 buildings and really didn't connect anything. come to find out the company that was going build it was the son of one of the board members. it was in the news and eventually scaled back to 300k..
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Anything above 400 students (less in very poor neighborhoods) is above critical mass. The ONLY thing that keeps the lid on teen craziness is peer pressure. Teachers, admins and, students who all know everyone is the single greatest weapon we have against the insanity of shootings, suicides and, life changing crime.
Click to expand...

Is there any evidence to support this? School size seems irrelevant as long as the school is adequately staffed. The ratio of resources (staff/programs/etc) to students seems to be more important. In fact I'd argue the pooling of more student resources creates stronger programs (athletics etc.) that couldn't be afforded or be practical for a smaller school.
 
waggy said:
a local town near me just built a huge 400k /sq ft 110+ million school (just read cost could ballon up to 200 million). it is large enough to support 4-5k students. the projected student body in 5 years would be 3500-4300 students.

now the issues..

Last years enrollment was 1593. the company that did the "projection" was employed by the company who was giving bids for the school. many of the smaller company's are owned by family members on the board for outrageous prices.

there have been multiple student projections. they range fro 1200-2200. in witch case the old high school would still have worked. either way the new school is twice as large as really needed.

They built it as a ONE STORY. ITS FUCKING HUGE. they are finding students don't have time to get from class to class.

with the economy being fucked tax's are shooting up.

there is more but can't remember..heh


this is a town that is majorly fucked up. The voting board is so fucking currupt its insane. a few years ago 1 of teh members son complained that there was nowhere (but the lagoon) to play hockey. so the city voted to put in a Ice skating rink at the cost of $300k it sat empty except for hockey practice...then shut down a year latter

the city voted to replace/upgrade ALL the store fronts in downtown! guess who owns the majority of the business downtown? yeah the board...they voted to spend $3-6 million to do it. Downtown is empty unless you want to go to a porn store or a bar.

they WANTED to spend $1 million on a sidewalk that went nowhere. it was between 2 buildings and really didn't connect anything. come to find out the company that was going build it was the son of one of the board members. it was in the news and eventually scaled back to 300k..
Click to expand...

Isn't there a way to get the State government to audit the local government? Seems like there should be some kind of legal ramifications...
 
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