Dearest reader,
Pour the coffee.
This one is longer than my usual posts.
Not because I have suddenly developed an affection for dissertations, but because when a school district makes a series of financial decisions over the course of several months, pulling one meeting out of the ledger doesn't tell the story.
The chronology does.
And after reading a year's worth of St. Johns Public Schools Board of Education minutes, I have one very simple question:
When a school district is projecting significant operating deficits, what should its financial priorities be?
That is the question. This is not an allegation that anything was improper. It is not an argument that early childhood education is unimportant. And it is not an argument that school districts should never borrow money.
This is about priorities. Because St. Johns Public Schools' own records document something worth examining.
So spectacles on.
Let's walk through the ledger.
May 2024
Voters rejected a $92 million bond proposal.
That proposal included plans for a new Early Learning Center.
May 2025
Voters rejected another bond proposal, this time approximately $99.8 million.
Again, a new Early Learning Center was part of the larger proposal.
Important distinction: voters did not vote separately on the Early Learning Center. They rejected the larger bond proposals containing it.
That matters, and receipts aren't very useful if I only keep the convenient ones.
October 13, 2025
The Board receives a District Facility/Financial Update.
District officials discuss ongoing maintenance and capital projects, recent expenditures and financial projections to support future facility planning.
The ledger is beginning to open.
November 10, 2025
The Board discusses continuing to explore options for maintaining district buildings and evaluating available financial resources.
A separate December workshop is planned specifically to continue that discussion.
December 18, 2025
Now the spectacles come down.
During a Facility/Financial workshop, the Board discusses the proposed purchase of the property at 106 W. Tolles Drive for approximately $300,000, with estimated renovation and retrofit costs of another $2–3 million.
But here's the important part.
The Board is presented with numerous ways capital needs potentially can be financed:
Voter-approved bonds.
Sinking-fund millage.
Limited-tax bonds.
Public-improvement funds.
Lease-purchase agreements.
Energy bonds.
State and federal grants.
General Fund dollars.
And hybrid approaches.
In other words, this wasn't simply a discussion about whether the district needed facilities.
It was a discussion about how the district could choose to pay for them.
January 12, 2026
The decision arrives.
The Board votes 6–1 to purchase the Tolles Drive property.
Immediately afterward, the Board votes 6–1 to approve a:
"Resolution Authorizing the Issuance of Non-Voted School Improvement Bonds."
Trustee Mansfield votes no on both.
St. Johns Public Schools now says the building cost approximately $300,000 and renovations approximately $2.7 million, bringing the project to roughly $3 million. The district also explicitly acknowledges that repayment of the non-voted bond is an obligation of the General Fund.
Remember those words.
General Fund.
We're going to need them shortly.
February 26, 2026
The district continues examining its remaining facility needs and financing options.
The Board again discusses voter-approved bonds, sinking-fund millage and alternative funding sources.
March 25, 2026
Baker Tilly presents capital-improvement funding options.
Different voter-approved bond structures are discussed, along with a possible bond/sinking-fund hybrid, projected tax impacts, interest costs and long-term repayment.
The district is now moving toward another voter proposal.
And then we arrive at the meeting I believe deserves a very large circle in the ledger.
🔴 APRIL 27, 2026
Read these two things together.
Not separately.
Together.
The district discusses its financial outlook.
According to the meeting minutes, declining enrollment and rising costs were creating continued financial strain.
The district projected deficits requiring more than $700,000 in cuts the following year and nearly $2.9 million the year after that to maintain financial stability.
The district also identified nearly $8 million in long-term investment needs involving curriculum, technology, facilities and transportation.
That is one side of the ledger.
Now turn the page.
At that same April 27 meeting, the Board approved the Early Learning Center bid package.
And the district was simultaneously moving toward another voter-approved bond proposal.
That is why April 27 matters.
The question isn't whether an Early Learning Center benefits children.
Of course it can.
The question is what happens when everything benefiting children is competing for a finite number of dollars.
Teachers benefit children.
Instructional aides benefit children.
Curriculum benefits children.
Transportation benefits children.
Technology benefits children.
Maintaining existing buildings benefits children.
Early childhood programming benefits children.
But when a district says its operating budget is headed toward significant deficits, somebody has to decide which things come first.
That is what budgeting is.
And every dollar committed to one obligation is a dollar that cannot simultaneously be committed somewhere else.
That is not politics.
That is arithmetic.
May 11, 2026
The Board approves moving forward with a new $40 million voter-approved bond proposal.
June 8, 2026
And here's another receipt I don't think should be overlooked.
The Early Learning Center has already been purchased and is being renovated through the approximately $3 million project financed with non-voted borrowing.
Yet the Board discusses putting additional Early Learning Center construction into the new voter-approved bond:
Two additional classrooms and gross-motor/gym space.
July 20, 2026
Those ELC additions remain in the proposed bond.
The Board formally calls the November election, 6–1.
The district's current project list estimates the proposed ELC expansion at approximately $2.08 million, before additional furniture and technology items.
And now we arrive at the part of this ledger I cannot get past.
The district itself says the non-voted ELC debt is an obligation of the General Fund.
Meanwhile, one of the district's stated purposes for the new $40 million voter-approved bond is to:
"Temporarily alleviate the general fund to right-size the budget and allow for proper future planning."
There it is.
One financing decision places a new repayment obligation on the General Fund.
The district is projecting significant operating deficits.
And another $40 million bond is now being presented to voters with General Fund relief as one of its stated benefits.
That doesn't automatically make either decision wrong.
But it certainly makes the priority question worth asking.
Because families understand this concept.
Businesses understand it.
When income isn't keeping pace with expenses, eventually choices have to be made.
Public schools are more complicated than household budgets. Their funding streams have legal restrictions, capital projects can produce long-term savings, and borrowing can sometimes be financially sensible.
But none of that eliminates the fundamental concept of opportunity cost.
Money committed here cannot also be spent there.
Debt incurred today becomes an obligation tomorrow.
And when financial pressure eventually reaches the classroom, taxpayers shouldn't begin examining those decisions only after they're told more money is needed.
They should be able to examine the decisions that created the priorities in the first place.
So I am not going to tell St. Johns voters whether the Early Learning Center was the right priority.
I'm not going to tell them whether the new $40 million bond is the right priority either.
That's their decision.
I'm simply putting the chronology on the table and asking:
When St. Johns Public Schools knew it was facing declining enrollment, operating deficits and millions of dollars in future budget reductions, was taking on additional General Fund-backed debt for the Early Learning Center the financial priority the community would have chosen?
And perhaps one more:
Before taxpayers are asked to maintain the current millage rate for another $40 million in borrowing, partly to relieve pressure on the General Fund, should they understand how the district decided which obligations to place on that General Fund in the first place?
Those aren't accusations.
They're budget questions.
And budgets, dearest reader, are nothing more than priorities written in numbers.
I'll bring the receipts.
You decide what they say.
With receipts and respect.
Sources:
St. Johns Public Schools Board of Education meeting minutes: Oct. 13, Nov. 10 and Dec. 18, 2025; Jan. 12, Feb. 26, Mar. 25, Apr. 27, May 11, June 8 and July 20, 2026. The district maintains its official minutes archive here.
St. Johns Public Schools — 2026 Bond FAQ / Early Learning Center explanation.
St. Johns Public Schools — 2026 Voting & Ballot Information.
St. Johns Public Schools — 2026 Bond Project List / Little Wings Early Learning Center.
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