Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Jess Fields makes an appearance in the Dallas Morning News to break down why Frisco ISD’s $775 Million Bond Is A Bad Idea For Taxpayers.
The Dallas Morning News recently ran a story about how Frisco ISD’s $775 million bond proposal is facing significant opposition and skepticism from the community. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has noticed Texans’ weariness of ever-increasing debt and taxes.
Do tell!
Frisco ISD has borrowed nearly $1.4 billion on the backs of taxpayers. And that doesn’t include interest, which is estimated at over $1.2 billion. Combine the principal and interest amounts owed, and the district’s total outstanding debt burden is nearly $2.6 billion, or about $55,988 per student enrolled.
That’s a school district, folks. A school district! $56k in debt per student. That is mind boggling. To put it in perspective the national debt which everyone is so rightly concerned about works out to $54,855.72 per capita as of this writing. Yep, you read that right, Frisco students are saddled with more debt by their school district than by their federal government.
Let that sink in a moment and then consider this last quote from Fields.
Among adjacent large districts, only Denton approaches this level of debt per student, at $41,671. Even then, Frisco’s total debt burden per child is over $14,000 higher than Denton’s — and that, of course, doesn’t account for the $775 million of new debt.
Assuming a reasonable interest rate of 4 percent over 30 years, the interest owed on $775 million principal could be as much as $556 million. Adding this estimated new debt total of $1.3 billion to the existing debt total of $2.6 billion increases the district’s total debt to over $3.9 billion. Under this scenario, the district’s total debt per student would be a whopping $84,781.
As always, hit the link to read the whole thing. Exit question: Can anyone in good conscience vote to approve Frisco’s bond proposal?