Northeast Chatham County High School financing

By Mike Cross
Posted Friday, June 2, 2006

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Chatham County, NC - Recently a citizen emailed me the following questions: Why bond for high school when we used COPS to pay for the other schools? Does that mean it was less important than the others to the board? What happens if the bond fails?

Here is my answer:

1. Had nothing to do with the importance of one over the other. We must build three schools.


2. Using COPS/loans was a matter of urgency for the elementary and the middle schools. We need them now. The loan rates were very close at that point, so we moved forward. We would always prefer to use the bond method when spending these amounts of citizen dollars - everyone should have a say and it keeps the heat off the board members.


3. We have time to use the bond vote on the high school and hope it will be approved; however, it still has to be built. If the bond fails, it requires two years before it can be put back on the ballot again. Obviously, we can't wait that long and will proceed, after a cooling-off period, with other financing if necessary - and no doubt take some heat. Bonds would be somewhat less expensive-no question.

The funding for debt service/repayment for the high school is already identified under the 4 cent property tax increase we put into effect last year.I hope this is helpful. We must really explain the effects of this bond issue county wide and hopefully gain enough support to pass it. If not, we will undoubtedly hear more verses of "east is east and west is west - and the east always gets what it wants". I really hear enough of that, so I will be working for support - countywide.