Marketing Fails to Win Farmer's Vote

(First the Wizard of Winfred, now the Oracle of Orland...)
Orland organic farmer Charlie Johnson weighs in on the editorial page of Friday's MDL with another perspective on the new gym project. With the author's permission, I reprint Johnson's well-crafted commentary here:

Voting on a bond issue is very serious business since it will involve levying taxes annually against real property within a school district. If you haven’t yet experienced the “happiness” of placing a second mortgage on your property, you will face a very similar obligation when paying for a bond issue. Levying taxes against real property within the Madison Central School District(MCSD) will be used as the mechanism to provide financial assurance and payment of the bonds to construct an event center/gym.

In Orland township, every $100,000 of ag land assessment pays $1137 in taxes (township, county, school, etc.) for 2007. MCSD gym bond issue is projected to cost $88.60 per $100,000 of assessed value. For ag land in Orland township, this represents an immediate 7.8% (88.60/1137) increase in taxes for up to 25 years. A home on Liberty Avenue in Madison pays $1907 in taxes for every $100,000 in assessed value. The MCSD bond issue represents an immediate increase of 4.6% in taxes for up to 25 years. With the recent assessments sent out for 2007, the taxable burden in 2008 and beyond may shift between different classes of property and areas of the school district.

Assuming two thirds of lake county residents reside in the MCSD, roughly 7300 individuals (11,000 x 2/3) are within the school district. If you disagree, then do your own math and then follow along. The $5.83 million bond issue represents $799 for every man, woman, and child in the school district. For a household of 4 that comes to $3196. If your household share of $3196 is something that you can’t afford, how do the taxes on the bond issue get paid? If you are in a position to afford more than the $3196 and yet your property tax burden doesn’t reflect that obligation nor what you can afford, how can you ask someone else to cover your share especially if that someone already can’t pay their per capita share. “Find Bulldog Pride a Home” doesn’t have much appeal when it jeopardizes living in one’s own home.

The math and a 19^th century tax system doesn’t add up to pay for a21st century building project. What is most disturbing about the gym proposal is the lack of a viable business operating plan and a vision for all of the general needs in the MCSD. Where are the funds to pay for the operation and maintenance of the new gym? Business people should know that O & M can match or exceed debt service on any asset. If it will cost $391,000 to service annually the debt, will it cost that or more to maintain the building?

Why haven’t we explored cooperation and partnership with other entities both public and private? How can the building be better designed so as to be used 7 days/week, 4 weeks/month, 12 months/year involving as many parties as possible? Do we have a budget plan that shows how usage fees can pay for the O & M and most of the debt service?The promotion tactics of the gym bond issue would have you believe that “Bulldog Pride” is an orphan with a knapsack walking the streets with no food or money. Let me suggest that “Bulldog Pride” can be found every day in the hearts and minds of all teachers and students, past, present, and future. There is pride when a 12 year old 6^th grader plays a musical instrument for the first time. Pride can be found in a relay team finishing first in a state track meet. Pride can be found in a freshman vo-ag student participating in a regional creed speaking contest. Pride can be found in a teacher reaching out to a struggling student helping him or her to academic success.

What is important in discussing the gym issue is that we weigh the importance of wants of parents/spectators versus the needs of students/educators. How can we provide better salaries for our educators and staff? How can we provide more resources in the classroom? How can we provide opportunities or simply reach those 20% of students who do not participate in activities? How can we provide more support to all our activities in the MCSD both co-curricular and extracurricular? How are we providing facilities and equipment for all programs? A slick marketing plan, unfair bond issue, and resolutions of “moral” support won’t bring about a new event center, let alone provide for the overall general needs of MCSD. Yet advocacy for educational support at all levels is so important.

In the end, I believe a new gym/event center can be built but it can’t be done without addressing the ongoing real needs of our students. It can’t be done with an unfair 19^th century tax system. It can’t be done with an overreaching advertising program. What it will take is a viable business plan, cooperation of both private and public entities, reform of the tax system, and keeping a visionary eye on all the basic needs of our students.

Johnson's comments need little amplification from this editor. I'll note simply that I find particularly effective Johnson's laying bare of the marketing tactics used by the athletic supporters to manipulate public opinion. Let's see how the marketers respond.
p.s.: still no reply from th athletic supporters on the possibilty of user fees or ticket surcharges.