The school boards know the

public is not too keen on raising taxes, but they know

from having run for office themselves that campaigning

can influence election outcomes. However, the Georgia

Ethics in Government Act forbids them from helping any

SPLOST campaign directly or indirectly.

That's where the snake

comes in with the apple. An investment banking firm comes

in with the following proposition: (1) agree to issue

bonds, which you can justify by saying you want an early

start for the projects to be financed by your sales tax,

and (2) promise to hire us and pay our fee for the

issuance of these bonds if a Yes vote comes in on your

SPLOST, and, in exchange, we'll provide the talent to get

the SPLOST campaign going and help it win.

What's the problem there?

Unless the bond fee is the absolute lowest fee that

honest, competitive bidding would produce, it includes a

hidden charge for the campaign organizing services, and

that charge is paid for by the taxpayers out of public

funds. That is dishonest. It violates the law. It shuts

out those honest investment bankers who would charge a

lower price to issue bonds and abstain from the

campaigning the school board is forbidden to engage in.

There is more to this. If

the bonds are not really needed - and chances are

they aren't - the whole arrangement saddles the

taxpayers with two sets of fees. For collecting the sales

tax, the state receives 1 percent and the merchants a

little over 1/2 percent, so 1 1/2 percent of it never

reaches the schools. Then the investment banker gets its

fee for the bonds, for a double set of fees.

So why isn't the public up

in arms about this? Why aren't members of the press

sounding the alarm? (This has been going on all over the

state and has just now reached Fayette County.) It's hard

to say. Everybody's asleep during the sermons, I guess.

Here, Adam and Eve, have another bite of this apple,

it'll make you wiser. But sorrier.

If the most essential part

of education is to instill good moral character in our

young people, by their example leaders without integrity

rob our educational process of the better part of its

value, no matter how much money they raise. The end still

does not justify the means.

Claude Y. Paquin

[email protected]

Fayette County

<!-------------