I am responding to the letter “No mystery to bond rejection” that tries to rationalize a vote against the Everett School District bond. As a CPA who worked in both the private and public sectors, I recognize that the facts and conclusions in the letter are just plain wrong.
The letter writer states that he works in the private sector where, “for a privately funded job, a contractor will pay for a journeyman-level employee a rate of $15 to $20 per hour.” He goes on to say “as soon as it involves a government job, due to the ‘prevailing wage,’ that increases to $50 to $80 per hour.” Annualized, this would mean that on a private sector job, a journeyman earns from $31,000 to $42,000, but on a public sector job, the journeyman earns from $104,000 to $167,000. Do you believe this?
He says that he voted against the measure to fund new classrooms because the school district should not have built the new administration building. Having been in the old administration building, I know that a private sector business would have replaced that structure long ago.
The Everett School District has grown. It is serving more kids and needs more classrooms and infrastructure in which to teach them. This seems pretty straightforward to me! I was educated in public schools. My kids were educated in public schools. I am willing to pay more to see that future generations have sufficient space and facilities in which to learn.
Finally, I need to respond to the myth that governments waste money and the private sector is fully responsible. Governments are not always as cost conscious as they should be. Neither are private sector companies. But my experience has been that most citizens would be shocked at the tight financial constraints within which our schools and local public sector governments manage.
The justifications utilized in his letter for voting against classrooms and infrastructure for our kids are at best weak and at worst just plain wrong. I hope the school district gives the community another chance to vote for kids and that we, as a community, will afford the children of today and tomorrow the same support that our parents and grandparents gave to us.
Roger Neumaier
Everett
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