Here’s what I got wrong…
I confused our 2020-2021 debt service with our overall indebtedness. During the year I used in my analysis, the most recent year provided by the Illinois Report Card, DPS had a huge one-time debt payment to refinance a ~$50 million bond at a lower rate. This caused our debt service for that year to be a little over $70 million, which was obviously extremely high but would best be described as an anomaly. So, while our district has an enormous amount of debt, and our debt service per student for that year was the highest in the state, the reason is mostly because we refinanced a bond.
Additionally, because our debt service for that year was so high, our total expenditures per student may also be misleadingly high. I’m going to look into these numbers and report back if I find anything.
Here's what I got right…
Our overall debt numbers supplied in the chart below are correct, and my calculations showing what the repayment of this debt will cost per student per year, both current and projected out over the K-12 life of a student are accurate…
Put another way, when a kindergartner enters our district, over a thousand dollars a year (and probably more like $1,500 as our enrollment declines) will be spent to service our district debt. So as revenue comes in from local, state, and federal tax dollars, we will probably spend around $17,000 of that money for each student to pay down our debt during their years in school. Is there any better way can think of to spend $17,000 for each child?
Here’s what I’m going to do about this…
I’m going to delete my last post because it is misleading. Additionally, I’m going to continue to investigate our district finances and (if I find anything interesting) attempt again to report back to you all how we are doing relative to other districts in the state.