Hold out for the best deal

To the editor,

Elected and appointed officials often don’t give taxpayers the best deal, but taxpayers can force them to give us a better deal when they need our votes.

Taxpayers in Spartanburg County School District Five can hold out for a better deal by holding out for less grandeur in the Byrnes expansion.

The plans can be downloaded from the District Five web site. The backs of schools are usually plain, but for some reason, the stadium side is fancier than the street side. The plans are factual information and it is factual that fancy costs more money. In my opinion, there is enough grandeur in the Fine Arts Center alone to keep Byrnes on par with the palaces that other school districts have built. Does grandeur give our children a better education?

I am going to vote against the tax increase because I want them to go back to the drawing board and simplify. I want a better deal. Reducing grandeur will take the District Five School Superintendent ($148,000/year) out of the running for any prestigious design awards but will easily shave millions off a planned 71 million dollar expansion. Cutting any of the four phases would save millions more.

The current deal is:

Grandeur – millions

Teachers and students – zero

I believe the better deal is:

Grandeur – zero

Teachers and students – millions.

I would encourage citizens that really care about our children and teachers to vote against the tax increase on September 9th because spending less money on grandeur will allow more money to be spent on the people. I believe it is the people not the building that makes a school exceptional.

Voting against an excessive tax increase doesn’t mean any expansion won’t be done but it does mean it will be done in a more cost effective manner.

Calvin Cowen
Duncan