All Bonds Are Not Created Equal

By Susanne Trimbath, Ph.D.

The 2004 college bond is ill-conceived, ill-defined and ill-timed.

The cost of the existing debt is enormous. The cost of servicing just the bonds issued after the 1992 election will rise nearly five-fold in 2009 and stay there for more than a decade! (Debt service requirements on the bonds rise from about $1,725,000 in 2004 to $8,440,000 in 2009 and remains approximately that high until around 2023; see 2003 Audit, Note 9, page 44-45.) Proposition S comes without a plan to manage the increased revenue needed to meet the payments on the existing debt.

The District's 2003 audit includes a warning that we "cannot afford to incur another deficit." The audit report goes on to express the belief that it is "extremely critical" for management to "to protect the financial solvency of the district." This bond does not, and indeed cannot, address the problem. The share of the bond that is clearly defined to address capital problems in the District is also committed to projects. The money cannot be used to alleviate the massive overhead on the District's financial statements.

Worse yet, the lion's share of the bond proceeds are earmarked for alliances that have yet to be created. This isn't mortgaging your future to ensure you have a future worth mortgaging. This is mortgaging an "if" and a "maybe." No voter in their right mind should approve that kind of borrowing. This bond proposal pursues grandiose ideas in place of doing the hard work needed to address the potential for the District to fail as a "going concern."

Therefore, I oppose Measure S.