This week's column: Wants versus needs
I would like to add a sunroom to my house.
I would like to cover its floor with Mexican tile and to fill its windows with wooden mini-blinds.
I would like to wire the new room for cable TV and stereo speakers.
And I would like to stock it with new furniture for lounging and casual dining — something elegant but unpretentious ... comfortable but durable.
There are many obvious advantages to this project.
It would improve my quality of life. It would improve the state of my health by relieving stress and providing a quiet place to relax.
It would increase the value of my house and enhance its resale price. It also would increase the city and county tax bases.
Although I probably could borrow enough money to make this sunroom a reality, it is not in my best financial interest, even if I committed to a decade's worth of baloney sandwiches for lunch and dinner.
I think often of that sun-room when I think of the city bonds. Voters will decide the fate of 11 initiatives totaling $115 million on Nov. 7.
Judged strictly on their merits alone, each has something to commend it, and each would be an asset, in its own way, to quality of life here. Who could argue that it wouldn't be nice to remodel War Memorial Auditorium or to complete the International Civil Rights Museum or to restore at least some of War Memorial Stadium's faded sheen?
Who doesn't want new fire stations? Who doesn't see the crucial need for economic development? Who opposes upgrades to the Greensboro Historical Museum? And wouldn't a new swim center be a cool addition to the Greensboro Coliseum Complex?
The dilemma is, you could add 11 more similarly uplifting projects to the list and convincingly speak to their inherent goodness. And the problem is, bond packages are, in a way, like shopping with credit cards. Sooner or later, the bills will come due.
That means tough choices need to be made. That means knowing our limits. That means distinguishing wants from needs and deciding what needs doing now and what can wait. And it means deciding what, if any, of the projects need not to be done at all — at least not on the taxpayer's dime.
The News & Record editorial board already has met with some groups who have made compelling arguments for some of the bond projects. They've spoken passionately, and often persuasively, about each project's potential for lasting worth to the community.
We'll evaluate these projects and include our recommendations on each as part of our political endorsements this fall. We will do our very best to be fair. But we'll also strive to be prudent. Here are our criteria for bond endorsements:
• Fiscal impact on the city and on taxpayers. What will each bond item cost and how will it affect the tax rate and the city's long-term debt?
• Urgency. Does the project have to happen now? What would be the consequences of waiting?
• Quality of life. How does it make Greensboro a better place to live? How beneficial is each initiative to the city at large? Does it benefit only a select few?
There's no doubt that the public's willingness to make wise investments in its future has paid generous dividends in the past through publicly financed bonds placed on the ballot as city, county and statewide initiatives. We've used bonds wisely for street improvements, police protection and new public schools. They've fueled fast-growing campuses at UNCG, N.C. A&T and GTCC.
There's also no doubt that Greensboro has, until recently, seemed terminally stricken with an inability to think bigger and reach higher. Thankfully, we seem finally to be getting past that.
But part of citizens' new willingness to support bonds has been their ability to see that money spent in ways that have made a tangible difference. Our investments in our city's future need to be wise and clear-headed.
And my investment in a new sunroom will have to wait.
Comments (15)
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Keep repeating this message Mr. Robinson because I am afraid we have too many David Hoggards who want us to "think big" until we think ourselves right into a debt so large that taxes have to be raised so high that people who have owned their homes for years, if not generations, will have to sell because they can't afford to live in them. I saw this happen in my last community. Lake Padgett Estates was our in the boonies in 1975 and people built what they hoped would be the home they retired and died in. Well the population grew, Tampa moved north and the county went wild on a spending spree. Our taxes went up every year until friends and neighbors who loved their neighborhood and homes were forced to sell because their retirement income wouldn't cover their needs and the taxes. Now I grant you new people will move in who can pay the taxes and all will be well with the city and certainly the city fathers and no one will notice or mourn the loss of these old timers. Sad. BB
Posted on August 13, 2006 2:43 PM
I don't think the sunroom analogy holds for at least some of the bonds.
Renovating the auditorium, for example, isn't a luxury, it's maintenance, more like putting a new roof on your house than adding an amenity. Fire stations, same thing.
The swimming center fits the bill pretty well, though.
Posted on August 13, 2006 3:57 PM
take some of the tax money that is wasted to build fire stations,if they are really needed.
Posted on August 13, 2006 4:40 PM
Brenda... Mr. Robinson does not reside here but I'm sure he visits occasionally.
Posted on August 13, 2006 7:53 PM
Allen,
Your reasoning is sound. Your analogies are mostly on the mark. The proper analogy for the Swimming Center is a rental home however. If you can construct a home and have the expenses covered by the rental income, then it is worth doing. The Swimming Center can generate enough new taxes from visitors to cover or minimize the cost of having it. As a result, the citizens get a facility that will be in high demand and provide many benefits to the community.
It is also poor reasoning to suggest that if we try to host enough swim meets to pay for the facility then it should not be supported because it is not widely available to the public. The pool will provide an aquatic facility for many many more people than we can now even if we have swim meets there 25 times per year.
The Swimming Center is for the physical and fiscal HEALTH of Greensboro.
Posted on August 13, 2006 9:47 PM
Brenda, how could you get Allen mixed up with the news editor? The front page has been full lately of puff pieces for every initiative on the ballot exhaustively listing the benefits of every bond issue up for a vote. "Supporters Say X Essential for Growth of the City." "Overwhelming Support for Bond Initiatives at City Council Meeting." Remember those headlines? This is that rare thing: the center-left ed page presenting a more balanced, fiscally conservative approach to the bond issues than the newsroom, which has tended merely to reproduce quotations from people who already support the project in question.
And despite the qualifications proposed above, they're all pretty much sunrooms for most people. It's a new roof if you go to the auditorium a lot, but if you don't, it's a new roof for the neighbor's tool shed. It's a rental house if your family swims competitively and you believe in happy economic forecasts, but if you're landlocked and you know the history of the rest of the coliseum, it looks like a sunroom that will steadily lose money. If you routinely pay a contractor to promise to build you a sunroom but not actually do it, you'll doubtlessly support the Civil Rights sunroom.
I'll vote for a sunroom or two myself, but with taxes going up every year without sunrooms, they'll be a tough sell.
Posted on August 14, 2006 12:29 AM
If the swim tank and civil rights (sun room ?) where a money making thing, private money would fund it! My opinion these are for ever a loser of taxpayers money. Allen build your sun room, you are only coming this way one time.If you are lucky you will drop dead, if not off to the old folks home.
Posted on August 14, 2006 6:24 AM
To Ed Cone: On not all of the items being "sunrooms," I fully agree; the challenge for us, and for voters, will be distinguishing which are and which aren't. And which can and should wait.
Posted on August 14, 2006 8:42 AM
To David Hoggard and Brenda:
Aw, I get confused with JR all the time; here's the best way to distinguish us: He's slightly taller and doesn't have a mustache anymore.
Posted on August 14, 2006 8:49 AM
Of course, Mr. Oliver, those swim center projections are speculative at best. And, as I recall, the city manager isn't willing to back off earlier projections that the facility would run an annual $200,000 deficit.
Posted on August 14, 2006 8:51 AM
Whose idea was it to take our tax dollars and build a competition olympic size pool in an area (N High Point Rd./Lee St) populated by derelicts, pawn shops, the occasional ladies of the night, and chinese takeouts?
G-d forbid if they should open it up to the public and the riff raff peculiar to that area starts using the facility for public bathing.
Posted on August 14, 2006 4:30 PM
Allen,
Your sunroom loan differs from a municipal bond in one critical aspect: you face severe personal repercussions if you misrepresent your financial liabilities to the lender who accepts your application.
If the City of Greensboro was required to fully comply with accounting standards required of private individuals and businesses we could expect to find significant under reported liabilities in retirement plan costs and other unfunded financial promises. Only because city government can pledge the hapless taxpayer and other "community assets" as its collateral is it able to acquire additional debt.
Here is one bond I would vote for: $400,000 to pay an independent private accounting firm to do a certified audit of the city's books to GAAP standards. Once we got the shocking news, we could work towards making Greensboro a city people and businesses want to locate in because its true financial condition is far better than the technically bankrupt municipalities competing with us.
Being able to honestly state that your community is financially sound is a definite marketing asset.
Another interesting study: How much of the city's debt is already held by creditors located in places in China and Saudi Arabia - creditors that may one day require transfer of municipal assets to pay off delinquent loans as has happened in communities consumed by public debt in places like Argentina?
Posted on August 15, 2006 9:17 AM
Jim,
The State of NC mandates an outside independent audit firm review NC municipality records on an annual basis in line with GAAP standards.
Greensboro's independently reviewed 2005 financials are accessible on their website.
It appears they received an unqualified auditor's opinion which basically states the org is financially solvent.
Posted on August 15, 2006 11:58 AM
For clarification, the deficit you refer to was an estimate we generated assuming the swimming center would be operated by the YWCA. Once the Coliseum idea took hold, Matt Brown said the pool could be operated at break-even. The taxes that can be added to the city's revenues are a function of how many events that can be attracted.
Posted on August 16, 2006 6:50 PM
Thanks for your note, Ted. I realize Brown makes rosier projections. Be that as it may, the city manager isn't willing to share that optimism.
Posted on August 17, 2006 9:09 AM