Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston said this week that, even though the county has passed bond referendums totaling $2 billion for Guilford County Schools’ capital projects and repairs in the last four years, it’s highly likely that a new round of school bonds will be needed “within the next two or three years.”
Alston made his remarks to the Rhino Times when he was being asked about the disappointed Page High School students, parents and alumni who expected to get a new high school after the passage of the $1.7 billion school bond referendum in 2022 – but instead the old school is continuing to limp along with heating and air system repairs and facing other issues.
The HVAC problems have caused several days of missed school at Page this January.
According to Alston, while a replacement for Page High School won’t get funded with the $2 billion currently being raised by the county, a new Page may be funded in what Alston said is a needed new round of school bonds.
“The school facilities study was done in 2018 and 2019,” Alston said. “After that, inflation hit hard.”
Alston said the increased price of steel and other construction materials after the schools’ needs study was conducted meant that many of the hoped-for projects included in the $2 billion – such as a new Page High School – weren’t possible.
Alston also said that, at the time that the most recent school bond passed – the $1.7 billion bond package two years ago – he and other county commissioners let the public know that wouldn’t be enough to fully fund the schools’ needs.
Page isn’t the only abandoned project on the list that helped sell the $1.7 billion bond referendum to the public. People in other parts of Guilford County also hoped that their local schools would get rebuilt or repaired. The very long list of school needs has had to be trimmed greatly since money doesn’t go as far as it did at the time the list of projects was drawn up.
Guilford County government spends over 40 percent of the county’s budget each year on funding school system operations and maintenance; however – when it comes to major construction and repair projects – Guilford County relies on funds from voter-approved bonds.
What’s happening now is reminiscent of 2008, when county voters approved two very large school bond referendums – and many of the projects called for in that funding round also never got done with that money. School officials at the time said that shifting circumstances meant it was necessary to take money from some proposed projects and move it to other needs that weren’t on the list presented to voters. At that time, like now, some voters felt as though they were left holding the bag.
The six other Democrats on the current nine-member Board of Commissioners, with very, very rare exceptions, do what Alston wants; so, a decision by Alston to put a new education bond on the ballot for voter approval in two or three years would mean a virtual certainty that the referendum would make it onto the ballot.
Also, the current board of commissioners, which includes two former Guilford County Board of Education members, a teacher in the school system and a volunteer in the system, is the most pro-Guilford County Schools Board of Commissioners in this century.
Guilford County voters like to back ¬school kids and school bonds; however, adding to the current massive 20-year school bond debt would put quite a strain on the system.
The $2 billion in previously passed school bond referendums is already costing the county much more than predicted due to higher than expected interest rates – which are good for treasury bond buyers but aren’t good for counties that are in the process of raising $2 billion through bonds.
In May of 2022, Guilford County voters approved the historic $1.7 billion school bond referendum on the heels of the $300 million referendum in 2020.
That $1.7 billion bond offering created concern among members of the North Carolina Local Government Commission. The commission is a state financial oversight entity that, among other things, makes sure local governments in North Carolina are able to pay off the debt they accrue.
The Local Government Commission, or LGC, eventually signed off on the giant referendum, however, that $1.7 billion in debt continues to grow in cost for Guilford County taxpayers – and the LGC might take another look at the county piling on more school debt. The LGC can stop referendums if it sees the debt as too risky for a local government to take on.
The $1.7 billion has to be paid back with interest, of course. So, it was always a given that the total payback for that loan would come in north of $2 billion. However, what wasn’t factored in was that, after years of rock-bottom interest rates, those rates would increase dramatically in 2022 and could be “higher for longer.
In recent calculations, the county has been using 5 percent interest rates as an estimated interest payback amount cost.
When the Guilford County Board of Commissioners began pushing for the giant school bond in mid-2021, some rough guesstimates were that the county would be paying perhaps a 2.5 percent interest rate on those bonds – roughly, the rate the county got when it issued part of the previous $300 million school bond that passed in November of 2020.
Using simplified amortization, at 2.5 percent the county would have paid around $462 in interest on the $1.7 billion, while, at 4.5 percent, the interest payment total comes to $881 million, an extra $419 million on interest alone.
Where can we find the list of proposed projects to be funded and the revised list with projects that were removed? Would you post this information? Thank you.
Screw that. Petition the NC Education Lottery for money and leave the taxpayers alone.
More debt. Just what this democrat run city needs. Just another reason I am leaving this city, along with violence, deteriorating road conditions, and lack of police involvement with traffic crime. Greensboro used to be a wonderful place to live, but no longer.
The two former Guilford County Board of Education members, a teacher in the school system and a volunteer in the system should hang their heads in shame and should not be part of any decision to issue more bonds. The Guilford County schools have demonstrated that they are incapable of educating Guilford students. There should be a serious audit of Guilford County schools including the quality of teachers by reviewing credentials; putting cameras in classrooms; eliminating phones in schools; punishing students that need to be punished regardless of race; reduction of school personnel that does not directly affect student learning by eliminating unneeded and overpaid administrators, i.e. bureaucrats.
When money is borrowed with a floating interest rate, the question should always be what happens if the interest rates increase dramatically. Apparently, the Commissioners (1) failed to ask the question (2) asked the question but did not care what the answer was or (3) did not discuss a plan should the interest rate accelerate, such as not overpaying for land for an unneeded and unwanted school in rural Guilford County when Greensboro schools are in such great need. Their plan now should be to abandon the building of the school at Boylston and S. Bunker Hill Rd and concentrate on the schools in Greensboro. No additional bonds needed. Problem solved.
This is what we all want. But wanting doesn’t make it so. You get what you vote for, so who is responsible?
District voting keeps the current knuckleheads in office. Would Skip Alston be elected if he had to persuade countywide voters to vote for him? I doubt it. Don’t think he doesn’t know this.
2 BILLION isn’t enough?!!!
How much does an independent audit of where the money has actually been spent. And a full accounting and report to the taxpayers BEFORE hitting up the piggy bank again.
“The world is not enough”.
——
The Government Education Racket isn’t about education.
It’s about money.
Do away with this ridiculous joint County-City school system. I for one am up to here with supporting non-teaching clowns in the city. Let the city dwellers pay for their schools and us County folks pay for ours.
Oh, that’s right, I forgot. Skippy needs his slush fund to maintain power.
They know they have us in the county by the short hairs by sheer numbers.
The school systems were once divided, city and county. There was a vote to combine the two. The “yes vote” won because the question was posed intentionally in a convoluted way to confuse. The ruse worked.
Voted no once and will vote no again so bring on your bonds Skip. County and city have plenty of your trained fools that will vote yes. They haven’t figured out your game and seen the BS.
One more reason to relocate to a neighboring county.
Guilford County Schools let these schools get into the shape they are in. When a problem arose you should have taken care of it, that’s what the school maintenance is for. But no, things were ignored and Skip wants to spend money. You will not get a YES vote from me. All Guilford County Schools want to do is put foolish liberalism in these kids heads and spend money. No wonder parents are sending their children to private schools.
Scott, you often editorialize that you believe that our local governments spend too much money, borrow too much money, and tax too much from citizens.
As a regular reader, I would appreciate it if you would write out specifically what you think is an appropriate amount for Greensboro, High Point, and Guilford County to tax, take in in other revenues, and to spend. It would be great if you could write out your ideal budget for the local government and why you think they should spend the money in that way.
I often think of your post about how much money has gone to homeless services when it could’ve been spent just paying the median rent for people that are homeless. That’s a really creative idea and insightful criticism and you should write more like that.
I’d love more posts like that with a wider and clearer vision.
Casting this kind of vision would help those of us that read you regularly and appreciate your diligent reporting understand where you are coming from and where you would like things to go. Otherwise, all you really end up doing is complaining.
Do you fish a lot, jt? You should with the way you are baiting Scott. Scott’s role is not to create any budgets. The role of a writer such as Scott is to follow the actions of government, inform the public of what is happening, and try to keep the government transparent as much as possible. Writing government budgets is not in his job description.
Just say no to any new funding. Follow the national lead and eliminate DEI. Use that money for schools.
Eliminate all DEI and the big and better mwbe departments, then take the 1million plus skip gave to his favorite voting clubs you’ll have 2.5 million that could be used for school maintenance. No bond or tax hike needed
Eliminating DEI in geekboro won’t happen. Why? The county and municipal governments are embedded with DEI folks.
Maybe we should quit giving money away to friends of the Guilford County commissioners under the pretense of money for non-profits
As written many times, DEI is constitutionally unlawful. Any government or private enterprise practicing DEI in any form or in any disguise should be held accountable by the NC AJ. This includes all MWBE programs, which are a form of DEI. All Skippy’s County contractor MWBE stipulations should be eliminated. A new dawn, a new day, wake-up to the sunshine.
That giant sucking sound you hear in GSO/GC is all of Alston’s MBWE buddies getting their kickbacks, payoffs, and bribes. Meanwhile, our students rank in the lower state quartile for math, science, and English learning.
Ole Skippy also wants to raise the sales tax even though his efforts have been rejected at least 3 times. You know someone is intellectually challenged (insane) if they keep repeating the same mistake and expecting a different outcome.
Recently I heard that each of the two new schools have a ‘unique’ design. Logic tells us that standardization cuts costs and ‘unique’ designs are more expensive. Henry Ford built EVERY Model T the same way making them cheaper and available to more people. You would think the ‘highly educated’ school board and administrators would be able to understand BASIC MATH AND COMMON SENSE. Apparently they can’t.
If I remember correctly, in the school bond referendum, a democrat NC judge said the democrat controlled school board and the democrat controlled Guilford County Commissioners illegally colluded to promote the passage of the bond. He added that since the bond was approved by about 60% of the voters, their collusion didn’t matter. I guess his message was, if you are going to cheat, be sure to win big.
When bonds are approved by voters, the county or school board has 10 years to spend the money and must repay that money within 20 years of spending it. So this means that a baby born TODAY, will STILL BE PAYING for these bonds when they are 30 years old with a family of their own. Funny how deceptive democrat politicians, democrat controlled school boards and democrat controlled county commissioners never bother to tell the truth to taxpayers and voters. I guess lying is part of their DNA.
Ole Skippy and the democrat controlled Guilford County Board of Commissioners did not reduce the mil rate for property taxes before the last re-evaluation. If they had done this, the property tax would have been what is called ‘revenue neutral’ meaning the amount of taxes you pay, would stay the same. Instead they picked the pocket of taxpayers and took tens of millions of dollars from everyone. In fact, Ole Skippy admitted that Guilford County had the 2nd HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF TAX INCREASE IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. It was higher than in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Martha’s Vinyard, Boston, Seattle or anywhere in the country. I bet the dems were puffing out their chests with this distinction.
BTW, county commissioners gave themselves a 50% pay raise a few years ago while giving county employees a 3 or 4% raise.
If you want responsible county commissioners and school board members, you need to VOTE REPUBLICAN. If you want to keep paying higher taxes, then continue to vote for dems. Sooner or later, the dems will run out of ways to steal your hard earned money. Higher taxes mean less money for you and your family. It’s your money and your choice.