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School Board to apply for a three percent literary loan equals one cent on this year’s tax rate.
If the building project goes forward as anticipated, the “savings” will wind up costing local taxpayers that one cent 10, 20, even 30 times over.
The State Board of Education, at its December 1983 meeting, approved a change to its bylaws and regulations regarding administration of the literary fund. Beginning July 1, 1984 interest rates will be based on a locality’s ability to pay as determined by the composit index used for distribution of state basic aid.
Rappahannock, considered by the state to be one of the Virginia localities most able to pay for education with local funds, will be charged five percent interest on a literary loan.
The year’s delay in starting and those two percentage points - assuming the building program proceeds - will cost many times over the $21,000 included in last year’s school request for capital outlay.
If $500,000, the lower figure cited by Estabrook for the construction project, holds, the two percentage points difference in interest rates will amount to an added cost of $2,500 in the first quarter of the first year’s amortization alone. For the first year, the extra expense will total $10,000 - more if Estabrook’s $750,000 estimate is closer to the mark.
Since 1976 when space needs at the high school were firpt officially recognized by a joint School .Board / Board of Supervisors committee, inflation of construction costs has upped the price by 10 percent a year. Add the increase that the difference in interest rates will bring and the cost of delaying the critical high school building program amounts to almost as much as construction itself would have cost eight years ago.
It’s past time for the School Board AND the Board of Supervisors to stand strongly behind an expansion at the high school before the costs, both in dollars and cents and in reduced effectiveness of educational programs, mount even higher.
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