Texas High School To Build New $35 Million Football Stadium Despite Incredibly Small Enrollment (Austin: how much, homes)

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by albert648

LOL and they say schools are underfunded....

They are underfunded for the education portion. Stadiums are built with bond money, and authorized by bond elections, which means the voters did this to themselves. It's a totally different pot of money than the operations budgets that pay for teachers and such. I think spending that much on a stadium for a single school is ridiculous. Houston ISD has 5(I think) stadiums for all of the 52 high schools in the district to share. Not all of them have sports, but there are no sports palaces.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by EDS_

That's now how these things are funded.

Investors will buy bonds generating the capital required for the football stadium. And just like all other others it will be a good deal for everyone.

Taxpayers have to pay for the bonds. However, since the taxpayers voted to spend this money, they can't complain.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by WRM20

Taxpayers have to pay for the bonds. However, since the taxpayers voted to spend this money, they can't complain.

Depends taxpayers may pay a millage in order to fund some portion of a bond package. My main point is the money does not come from classroom funds.

[albert648]

Originally Posted by WRM20

They are underfunded for the education portion. Stadiums are built with bond money, and authorized by bond elections, which means the voters did this to themselves. It's a totally different pot of money than the operations budgets that pay for teachers and such. I think spending that much on a stadium for a single school is ridiculous. Houston ISD has 5(I think) stadiums for all of the 52 high schools in the district to share. Not all of them have sports, but there are no sports palaces.

Because they waste $35 MILLION on football stadiums.

Schools have plenty of money. If you can afford a $35 million luxury that is at best ancillary to your primary purpose, then you are not underfunded and you don't need any more money.

[DFWGuy422]

Originally Posted by albert648

Because they waste $35 MILLION on football stadiums.

Schools have plenty of money. If you can afford a $35 million luxury that is at best ancillary to your primary purpose, then you are not underfunded and you don't need any more money.

I don't view it as a total waste. Good athletic programs can significantly improve a school's marketing potential. I don't think many people outside of DFW would know anything about Allen if they didn't consistently dominate in sports. There are also enormous benefits to participating in athletics/other activities for students. I view my 15-ish years of playing competitive sports as a very formative experience that has helped me in other areas

[widespreadfan]

Melissa's new high school looks like a prison. I wonder how many seats you get for $35 million.

Does anyone how often does Allen fill their stadium for home football games?

When we lived in Midland we went to alot of high school football games because there is not much else to do. Odessa's Ratliff Stadium was full for 2-3 games per year. Midland was never full. I have not been to a high school games since we moved back to the Metroplex over 2 years ago.

[albert648]

Originally Posted by DFWGuy422

I don't view it as a total waste. Good athletic programs can significantly improve a school's marketing potential. I don't think many people outside of DFW would know anything about Allen if they didn't consistently dominate in sports. There are also enormous benefits to participating in athletics/other activities for students. I view my 15-ish years of playing competitive sports as a very formative experience that has helped me in other areas

I don't disagree. But academic excellence is and should always be a school district's primary purpose. And students can still play football without a fancy stadium.

All I'm saying is, if you can afford a $35M athletic facility, serving a purpose that is undisputably secondary to academics, you don't get to claim that you don't have enough money. Schools don't have enough money because they spend it on stuff like this.

Now if schools wanted to go completely independent and operate solely from tuition dollars, that's fine, it's their money to do with it whatever they like.

[DFWGuy422]

Originally Posted by albert648

I don't disagree. But academic excellence is and should always be a school district's primary purpose. And students can still play football without a fancy stadium.

All I'm saying is, if you can afford a $35M athletic facility, serving a purpose that is undisputably secondary to academics, you don't get to claim that you don't have enough money. Schools don't have enough money because they spend it on stuff like this.

Now if schools wanted to go completely independent and operate solely from tuition dollars, that's fine, it's their money to do with it whatever they like.

I agree completely on academics being the first and foremost concern. However, the $35M football facility doesn't necessarily eat into funds that would be used for academics. Unless there was a comparable $35M bond issuance that would have gone directly into education, it presumably would have been the stadium or nothing. Should we, as a country, care more about academics and focus on building those up more than athletics? For sure. But that isn't the case, and I don't have a problem with the stadium since it will offer significant non-academic benefits.

[FreeVilley]

$35 Million aint what it used to be.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by albert648

Because they waste $35 MILLION on football stadiums.

Schools have plenty of money. If you can afford a $35 million luxury that is at best ancillary to your primary purpose, then you are not underfunded and you don't need any more money.

You would *think* that is true. But Texas school finance is incredibly screwed up and unnecessarily complicated. But even “wealthy” school districts don’t have unlimited funds and can in some cases need to operate more frugally than other districts simply because such a large percent of their property taxes are sent to the state for recapture / reallocation. At a certain point, it’s a law of diminishing return to raise property taxes if $2 out of every $3 (or $1 of every $2 or whatever) is not able to be kept in the local schools. The state wants every district to have a “fair” budget for operating expenses - that is a set $ per student and then adjustments made based on local cost of living , etc factors.

Bond elections can only pay for infrastructure. So Melissa ISD can raise $35 MIL and keep 100% of it to spend on a stadium but not $1 of that $35M could ever go toward teacher pay, textbooks or educational software, etc.