Say Anything Blog

I find this very interesting, have bookmarked the website referenced and sent it on to others.

As a homeschooling family, we hear we “cost” the school district x amount of $$’s because our children aren’t in the school system. I’ll never forget a Minot newspaper article a few years back specifically referring to the notion of the “___ homeschooling families in Ward Co. cost the district” so much in money.

I could care less a chunk of our mortgage payment goes to our local school district--that’s what it’s for and I want our local school to be good for those who choose to use it--but to be reminded we “cost” the school district $$ just because we’re homeschooling??

Pharaoh had a dream: He was standing by the Nile, 2 when out of the river there came up seven cows, sleek and fat, and they grazed among the reeds. 3 After them, seven other cows, ugly and gaunt, came up out of the Nile and stood beside those on the riverbank. 4 And the cows that were ugly and gaunt ate up the seven sleek, fat cows

Isn’t this the collective ending fund balance—which could consist of several funds, including a contingency fund—and the usual practice in government budgeting? You don’t want to reach $0 on May 14 when the fiscal year starts on July 1.

Which is to say, I don’t know. But $17 million is about a 2 percent surplus, which is actually kind of small if it’s the total of school districts’ ending fund balances.

Pomerdorgrad?
Hey, don’t be bringing logic onto this blog.  They will throw you right off.  It makes em nervous when not everyone grunts approval with every post.

Where’s the funding for my personal “rainy day fund?”

This logic that we need to steal people’s money for a rainy day is bull shit. It is our money, when you have a surplus or you don’t use all of the money budget you’re being over taxed.

check out Goon’s World

Goon’s North Dakota Red Neck

Pomerdorgrad,

The school districts are mandated by statute to keep a certain percentage of their budget in reserve (I can’t remember the specific percentage, and it’s too late at night to go digging through the Century Code).  The last number I saw for total dollars held in reserve by the school districts was $187 million.  So this $17 million would be in addition to that, it seems.

That being said, I’m no expert on school finance.

Just as long as the surplus money is visible you’re OK.  Let the voters know.  You don’t want to get into the practise of “spend or loose”.  Some years you just might need to replace a roof for example.  2% is not a bad overage.  Rather that than minus 2%!

Communism is evil

Well, another question to ask is this: If schools have extra money why aren’t they paying off their debts?

There is $217 million in outstanding bonds for schools statewide, with another approximatley $5 million outstanding in certificates of indebtedness.  And another $33 million in construction loans.

The interest on all that has got to be big.  Do we really need an extra $17 million sitting around when there is all this debt to pay off?

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

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