...The county council, along with County Executive Ike Leggett, the MCPS school board and members of the Montgomery County Delegation are asking Gov. Martin O’Malley and the Maryland General Assembly to allocate $20 million for school construction. The county will invest $40 million and plans to use $60 million in revenue to support a $750 million bond issuance.
Superintendent Joshua Starr’s 2015-2020 Capital Improvements Program budget requests $1.55 billion over the next six years for 14 new classroom addition projects, including 12 at elementary schools, construction of five new schools and keeping some other previously approved revitalization/expansion projects on schedule. Starr estimates the county actually needs $2.2 billion to accommodate the growing school system...
Friday, November 8, 2013
Sentinel: County schools look forward to more funding
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This construction is now needed because of the over-the-top development in the county being pushed by the elected County Council and the Planning Board (appointed by the County Council). At meetings it is stated repeatedly that required infrastructure, including schools, will be paid by impact taxes on the developers. So, why isn't this happening? Why don't those taxes cover these costs? Instead, costs are foisted off to county and statewide taxpayers. Please demand cost benefit analyses as part of new development approval, please write to the council and ask them why they need tax dollars to pay for the infrastructure, including schools. Email: county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov. Please post responses here.
ReplyDeleteThanks Paula... Everyone should know that developer impact taxes do NOT cover the impact that new development causes. It is a myth that hyper-densification (even in "transit oriented zones) will generate new tax revenues. Instead this unbridled development COST the taxpayer even more and lowers our quality of life with traffic gridlock and overcapacity schools. In the 2002, 2006 and 2010 Montgomery County elections, more than 2 out of every 3 dollars contributed to a political campaign came from developers. A great deal of this money went to Councilmembers like Floreen, Rice and Leventhal. And if you thinl these issues are bad now (gridlock and school overcrowding), God help us if Doug Duncan gets elected. He is taking even MORE developer dollars in his 2014 bid for County Executive than he did in 2002 and his 2006 run for governor. If he gets in, expect significantly higher taxes, traffic to come to a standstill and 50 kids in a classroom.
Delete@Anonymous, thanks. In fact, most if not all of the council members receive quite a lot of real estate (RE) development money, even those who claim they don't. It is often funneled through PACs, organizations with other names, or 'astroturf' organizations -- but it all comes from the developers.
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