On May 7, Alpena Public Schools will ask voters for permission to sell up to $63 million in bonds to raise money for facility repairs, renovations, remodels and upgrades, with a focus on improving school security measures. The bonds would be repaid over 25 years through increased property taxes.

Voters will not approve a new tax rate on May 7. Instead, the rate can fluctuate from year to year based on the annual bond payment due and the taxable value of properties within the district. Current estimates have taxes rising by about 1.9 mills, or $89 a year for the typical Alpena County homeowner, if the proposal passes.

Despite our initial hesitation becuase of the financial commitment involved and other issues, we have been convinced APS needs the money to make our students safer and their schools more conducive to learning.

We urge you to vote yes.

Michigan’s school funding, based on enrollment, doesn’t take into account other factors that can stretch one school’s budget more than another.

APS, for example, has about the same number of students as the Fraser school district. However, APS’s boundaries cover 600 square miles, compared to six square miles in Fraser. APS gets no more money than Fraser but has to spend much more on buses, bus maintenance, gas, and driver wages just to get kids to the classroom.

That and several other issues leave little money to care for the district’s aging buildings. APS Superintendent John VanWagoner reports roofs leaking, boilers nearing the end of their useful lives, foundations sinking, and several other problems that can make classrooms uncomfortable, if not dangerous. Light fixtures, for example, are filling with water at Wilson Elementary as the district is “essentially patching patches” on the roof, VanWagoner said.

The district can currently afford roughly $200,000 a year for basic maintenance, VanWagoner said. Meanwhile, it would cost $1.3 million to replace the ancient boiler at Ella White Elementary. That means that, within the current maintenance budget, it would take the district six-and-a-half years to save enough money to restore heat to its biggest elementary in the not-unlikely event the boiler goes.

Just a few short years after climbing out of a deficit, APS has a healthy fund balance. However, if the district digs too deep into its cash savings to cover repairs, it’ll be forced to borrow money from the state just to pay its regular bills, meaning it would pay interest with money that could go to classrooms and could find itself back in a deficit.

We understand the district is asking much of its taxpayers, many of whom live on fixed incomes and all of whom are still paying off the district’s last bond proposal from the 1990s. Those bonds won’t expire until 2021.

Until then, the typical Alpena County homeowner would pay a total of about $174 a year toward APS bond debt if the May 7 proposal passes, about $113 a year after the 1990s bonds are paid off.

That price tag initially gave us pause, as did early confusion from APS administrators who first insisted the proposal would not double the taxes going toward district debt before conceding it would.

But the tax increase is equal to about the cost of a specialty drink from Cabin Creek Coffee every biweekly paycheck.

In our minds, given the costly problems APS faces and the limits on its income without us, that’s a worthy sacrifice for our schools and, more importanlty, our students.

Please vote yes on May 7.

(THE ALPENA NEWS)