Looks like Winston-Salem-Forsyth County Schools has set its proposed $325 million bond— the “largest ever put forward by the school system,” according to the Winston-Salem Journal. (Compare that to Guilford County’s $457 million bond passed by voters eight years ago.)
What’s interesting about this bond proposal is it appears there will be opposition from both the right and the left:
Conservative groups like the local chapter of Americans for Prosperity said they will campaign against the bond because of the tax burden such debt puts on a community.
Local NAACP leaders say they can’t support the bond package in its current form because there isn’t enough in it for East Winston — the mostly black, mostly poor enclave east of U.S. 52.
Among the NAACP’s concerns was the omission of Ashley Academy, a struggling east W-S elementary school that school officials were hoping to either upgrade or totally rebuild. But school board members “committed to making Ashley a top priority in the next bond referendum.”
You can imagine my reaction —what next bond referendum? Fortunately the Journal addressed this question:
When that next bond will be placed on the ballot is not up to the school board, though. It’s up the county commissioners and will depend, at least in part, on the timeline for the 2016 bond. Because the school system cannot manage $325 million worth of projects at one time, the bonds will be sold in increments spread over four, six or eight years. It’s unlikely another bond would be put on the ballot until the previous bond’s projects were completed.
Dana Jones, school board chair, said six years is the earliest realistic window for another bond.
“My hope is we’re able to go on a six-year plan and in six years someone is back around the table thinking about what the next bond looks like,” she said. “In my mind, I envision Ashley being one of those priorities at that time.”
The last school bond was in 2006.
Of course this speculation rides on whether or not this bond passes–which given the opposition from both sides of the political spectrum—– is debatable.