A not so satisfying follow-up on WCSD school building projects
Is the response to the reasonable questioning of a one year 40% cost hike in the building of the buildings promised if WC1 passed an acceptable one? Even if the bonding will cover all of the projects proposed despite the new cost estimates, is there not good reason to question how it is that costs have risen so incredibly fast in the little less than a year since WC1 was approved? Remember this, that this measure was sponsored and the campaign for it paid for, in large, by the building industry and its friends in the Chamber of Commerce and other business boosting organizations, most of which have traditionally not supported proposals for raising taxes to support education.
These WC1 boosters got voters to vote for a sales tax increase that will pay only for the cost of building buildings. There is not a penny of WC1 money that can be used to hire new teachers or raise the salaries of teachers so that the District can attract the numbers of teachers needed and insure that they are the best and brightest available.
As I said in the earlier post regarding this issue, if it is true that costs have risen so precipitously over the course of the last 11 months or so, then it will be reflected in the cost of living. All will be affected by rising costs, not only the builder amongst whom very few are living paycheck to paycheck as many teachers must.
If the builders are, as they worked hard to make people believe during the campaign, really interested in education and the betterment of the community, shouldn’t they be willing to lower their profit margins, for the sake of the community they so love, absorb some of the added costs they claim to face, maybe even do the work on a non-profit basis?
When hell freezes over, right? Washoe County, voters, I think you have been had.
