Ecorse - 30-YEAR DEBT TRAIL

[Shadowninja]

Dearest reader,

Lady Budgetdown went looking for a few more Ecorse breadcrumbs.

Instead, she found a debt trail stretching back nearly 30 years. 🪶

So let us keep this simple.

In 1996, Ecorse voters approved two bond proposals totaling:

$45.555 million.

That is where our timeline begins.

Fast forward more than two decades.

By 2019, Ecorse reported approximately $54.5 million owed through Michigan's school bond loan programs, programs that allow districts to borrow from the state when their debt-tax collections aren't sufficient to meet scheduled bond payments.

Then came another major transaction.

In 2019, Ecorse issued $55.26 million in refunding bonds

Think of a refunding somewhat like refinancing debt. It doesn't mean taxpayers suddenly received another $55 million worth of new buildings. Existing obligations are being restructured.

And this particular refinancing had an unusual-looking repayment schedule.

The district initially paid interest.

Then came principal payments of approximately $6.2 million per year.

And then...

📅 May 1, 2027
$36.66 MILLION in principal comes due at once.

Yes. $36.66 million.

Meanwhile, the state-loan story didn't disappear.

Ecorse's reported School Loan Revolving/School Bond Loan Fund obligation increased from approximately:

$3.22 million in 2023
to
$10.29 million in 2024.

That's an increase of roughly $7.07 million in a single year.

And as of June 30, 2024, Ecorse still reported $56.345 million in bonded principal outstanding.

Now, Lady Budgetdown is going to be very careful here.

We cannot simply add every bond, refunding and state loan together and declare that taxpayers "owe" the resulting number. Refunding debt can replace earlier debt, and doing that would count some obligations more than once.

Nor do these records, by themselves, tell us exactly how Ecorse intends to handle that enormous final maturity.

But the receipts certainly leave some questions sitting on the ledger.

How did $45.555 million approved by voters in 1996 evolve into this debt structure nearly three decades later?

How much have taxpayers paid toward these obligations over those years?

How much has been borrowed through Michigan's school bond loan programs?

Why was $36.66 million of the 2019 refunding left for one enormous final payment?

And perhaps most importantly:

📅 May 1, 2027 is now less than eight months away.

What exactly is the plan for that $36.66 million maturity?

Lady Budgetdown doesn't have that receipt yet.

And when the ledger leaves a $36.66 million question unanswered, it seems perfectly reasonable to ask. 👓🪶

#LadyBudgetdown #EcorsePublicSchools #Ecorse #MichiganSchools #SchoolBonds #SchoolDebt #SchoolFinance #TaxpayerDollars #EducationTransparency #FollowTheMoney #FollowTheReceipts #WithReceiptsAndRespect