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Not trying to pick a fight or be a major smart a--, but this does seem to be a good time to interject an observation about public debt. If the functionality of the proposed schools is maintained for as long as our great-great-grandchildren will be alive, why is it unreasonable to finance the construction of those facilities in such a manner that they will share in the cost of them? Of course, from a literal standpoint that isn't likely to happen -- most traditional issues have a limit of 30 years for repayment. In terms of scale, I don't know how far out of whack that $2 billion dollars is for a market of the size and nature of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of debt (and I'm currently on track to make my own organization debt free by 2026). But for major capital improvements, there are many facets to that discussion. And if a community truly values public education, debt for schools is a concrete political example of "putting your money where your mouth is." Reading between the lines, I assume that sixcat's brother lives in Mooresville. I've been gone from that area for a while but based on my understanding of that community's demographics and economic trends, I don't think an additional debt load of $245 million is going to place a huge financial burden on Mooresville.

That seems to be a good summary of the situation that Tazewell and other SW Virginia localities are facing. Although I'm an expenditure wonk by nature, this would appear to be a revenue-driven issue. Unless someone really brilliant can pull a rabbit out of a hat, only resolution I see is a combination of consolidation, increased taxes for residents, and debt.

Oh wow.... I just assumed Mooresville because I know that they are building some new schools there and the population figure seemed about right. I'm sure that the leadership of Cornelius had its reasons, and I have no basis for criticism, but I don't know why any locality within Mecklenburg would try to do something like that on a public school basis. Then again, I know that particular community has a longstanding affinity for big ticket capital items. I thought Davidson had stepped in it with regard to their decision to enter the cable business. But that looks much worse. Not that it matters, but Mooresville is on pretty solid footing and it's not far up the road -- unless your brother is seriously enamored with Cornelius, of course.

Seems like your 4th paragraph may answer your 2nd. :)

Maybe I should have been a bit more explanatory. I'm not attempting to be argumentative either so, don't take it as such! My brother lives in Cornelius, not Mooresville, which lies in Iredell County. Cornelius is in Mecklenburg County and is a part of the CharMeck school district. How does it make sense for the Town of Cornelius (population 28,500) to take on $245 million in debt immediately followed by the remainder of the CharMeck school district taking on an additional $2 billion for the same cause? To further compound those issues in Cornelius, they had an agreement in place at the time to have the Town of Cornelius control of the new schools given they had agreed to fund them. Which meant CharMeck wouldn't be permitted to rearrange school boundaries to send students from outside the Town of Cornelius to the new schools. CharMeck reneged on the agreement and immediately rearranged school boundaries before the new schools even opened. Using Hough High School as an example, the Town of Cornelius had the school designed and built to house 1,800 students. When CharMeck rearranged boundaries, kids from North Meck were rerouted to Hough where the current enrollment now stands at 2,572. Hough High School opened in 2012 and is already well over 30% over designed capacity! Now, Cornelius is preparing litigation to formulate its own independent school district. Which, incidentally, will cost the school district more money to fight in court.

You touch on a great point: it’s a matter of scale and economy. I am by no means an an expert on Mecklenburg County, NC, but the size of Mecklenburg County rivals Fairfax County, VA. Fairfax County Public Schools’s budget for FY 2018-2019 is $2.8B dollars. Presuming that Mecklenburg County Public Schools is of relatively similar scale and economy, $2B over 10 years isn’t farfetched. It’s probably well within the scope of capital improvement plans that assuredly exist. A repayment of that scale is MAGNITUDES easier (despite the high figures) than the mess Dickenson County, VA got itself into by grossly overextending itself to consolidate. I would be here all afternoon writing the reasons why, but imagine a modest increase in property tax. Raising real property taxes in Tazewell County by $.01/$100 generates about $280K in revenue in the County. Raising real property taxes in Mecklenburg County would almost certainly generate exponentially more. There’s so much more “play” in figures there than here. In the public sphere, “debt” is not an evil word in and of itself. “Debt” when coupled with “where the Hell is this money coming from?!” is evil.

I'm not familiar with WV, KY, TN and SC. The quick, simple answer for NC.....debt! Generational, chocking, crippling debt! The town my brother lives in outside of Charlotte has built 3 elaborate new schools since 2012 ranging in cost from $65 million to $98 million. My brothers great-great-grandchildren will still be repaying that debt. I believe the total cost was in the neighborhood of $245 million. The county also spent additional money on a series of public parks linking each of the 3 school properties together. The entire schools/park property is an incredibly beautiful space but is it really necessary? Will it attract more people to move to the area to raise tax revenue to make that expense worthwhile? I'm not sure but that's a huge debt service for a town of 28,500. In February 2016, Charlotte - Mecklenburg County Schools signed a $2 Billion Dollar agreement to build a series of schools around the county over the next 10 years. I get Charlotte is huge and continues to grow, but $2 billion dollars is an astronomical figure!

The question is how does states around us continually build new schools? KY, WVA, NC, SC do it and are they really better off financially? I think it comes to the above post and forward thinking. Building are not going to last forever without major overhauls. But both supervisors and school boards do not plan for those items. Schools get to a point of being patched for so many years that when there is no choice but to build there is no money. Ad declining enrollment and our economy is makes for hard times. Just wanted to make a comment

I was watching an interesting HBO segment featuring Joe Maddon on Youtube last night. First of all, Maddon is as intellectually gifted and cerebral as they come. The piece followed Maddon into his hometown of Hazelton, PA. Going back a couple of decades, the town had begun to deteriorate and decline. Schools were closed and consolidated with neighboring schools destroying traditional community pride and rivalries. What struck me in the piece is when Maddon started discussing neighborhoods and communities being tied together through the local schools (5:50-6:50 in the video). Maddon said in the piece about his childhood arch-rival high school being closed, "The fact that we had those traditional rivals was legitimate. The Thanksgiving football game was nasty. It was fabulous! No-more. It's self-destructive behavior when you subtract those kind of traditional events from a community". He correlates this "consolidation" of communities and schools to rises in crime and destructive behavior. I would encourage anyone to watch this piece. It's well worth the 25 minute investment in time.

I like how this was just skirted around.