Why we should Vote NO...again!

The following article gives a complete, easy-to-understand explanation of the financial gymnastics that have been used to describe the necessity and small size of this bond/millage.  The township school board's claims are deceptive...read this before you vote on May 5th!

Review Magazine Article 03/04/26   (Click to read)

• This 3rd "ask" in 3 years shows disrespect for the clearly spoken wishes of Saginaw Township residents.  It has been less than 6 months since the last ballot proposal!  The previous 2 bonds have been SOUNDLY defeated!

• The STCS School Board has wasted tons of money on consultants, architects, publicity & special (lost!) elections.  (Even the private funds donated to their ballot committee could have fixed a lot of school property issues!)

• This proposed bond & debt burden will last for 20 YEARS!!!

• Saginaw Township residents & businesses are in line for a PROPERTY TAX CUT in a couple years because of retiring debt.  This bond would steal our tax DECREASE!

• Township residents & businesses cannot afford rising property taxes in the face of ever increasing property valuations--in addition to rising energy costs, insurance costs, fees and prices.

• This continual push for more money is a substitute for the hard work that citizens & businesses must do when money is tight--cutting back on expenses, consolidating buildings, reducing staff, reducing overhead, etc.  The school board should be rethinking how public schooling should look in an era of decreasing student enrollment & higher costs of living.

• Spending money on buildings is no guarantee that education outcomes will improve.  Our STCS need to seriously address the unacceptably low scores and the huge number of students who are reading & doing math grades behind where they should be.  Our township kids deserve better!

• The number of so-called "disasters" in our buildings that need to be fixed reveal a shocking level of property mismanagement & a failure to carefully steward the facilities, properties, equipment & buildings they already have.

• Their lack of accountability & transparency is very obvious--every one of these recent school bond elections has been scheduled during a SPECIAL election--so that fewer people would know about the election and the school board can sneak in higher property taxes.

Students are struggling in our schools to acquire the needed literacy, math & science skills needed to successfully move into adulthood & the workforce.

Out of our 4 township elementary & middle schools, only 1 (Hemmeter) appears to be performing well.

White Pine received a "C" grade and Arrowwood & Weiss both received a "D" grade.  [Data was compiled by adjusting standardized test scores with student socioeconomic status--resulting in a "Context & Performance (CAP)" rating.]   https://www.mackinac.org/depts/epi/performance.aspx?report=3

STCS Schools Enrollment Sample

2005 5,245 students

2010 5,273 students

2015 4,932 students

2020 4,694 students

2024 4, 492 students

Student enrollment has dropped 18.2% since the (2007) highest enrollment of 5,494 students.

Saginaw Township Schools' website noted that their budget is over $63,000,000.00 (since taken down).  For 2022-2023 their budget was $58,442,574.

What puts this in perspective is that the total enrollment is around 4,600 students (per their website).

That is about $13,600 to educate each student!