Paging all COMIDA experts - Answer this question
btp wrote a stunning post about the Harley school receiving a $10 million dollar loan guarantee and it got me thinking. What is the cost? I mean, I’ve been around long enough to know that nothing is free, so someone please answer these questions.
1. Is there a cost to this loan guarantee? If it is free - why can’t everyone who is credit worthy get one?
2. If there is a cost , who is playing that cost?
3. What is that cost in terms of dollar amounts, in terms of lost tax revenue, fees or other items?
- COMDIA
- Monroe County
- Town of Brighton
- State of New York
I’m sure the Harley school, like other successful private schools, are wonderful places. So, they want to expand, good for them. There seems to be a market. They are a private and selective school. Meaning they don’t have to take everyone or can/do restrict people on the mere fact that it costs up to $17K per year to attend high school. Remember this post about private schools? Well, if you can pay, you can go. Like that post said - we are talking about spending $17,000 per year for High School.
Although about 30 percent get some financial assistance, most Harley parents pay tuition of $17,000 a year for students in grades nine through 12
Let’s go back to the private part. Why does a private entity need the government, or in this case COMDIA, to give them a loan guarantee?
I’m sure Harley is credit worthy and as a strong financial institution can function on its own w/o government help.
I mean it isn’t like Harley school is going to relocate out of town, are they?
What is the cost to this?
you posed the very statement i would make on this topic: would harley relocate without the incentive? obviously not, so why help them out? isn’t the big knock on public schools that they go running to the gov’t and taxpayers for more money all the time? that running it privately makes it like a business and thus makes it good because all busineses are well run, cost effective and add value to society? it is amazing how two faced this situation is.
Agreed. Conservatives are forever yelping about government handouts and the need for unfettered competition.
Same thing with Seabreeze - a family run business that is not going anyhere. Or Manning and Napier - a highly successful multiBILLION dollar money manager that got funds to move from downtown to Woodcliff. Or Mid-town athletic, a franchise that happens to want to Clay tennis courts at taxpayers expense. Get real Comida!!!!!!!
What are the costs? Bonds are tax free. So that means that revenue is not being collected on the loan. Kinda indirect but it does speak to the fact that bonds are not free of harm to government. The question is whether floating the bond benefits the community sufficiently.
Another point- there are lots of privates schools in the area, all competing with each other for private school tuition dollars. Why would the county intervene in this marketplace and favor one school over another, thereby providing it a competitive advantage over the others.
When I once pointed this out to Hurlbut, one of the COMIDA board members, he spluttered that COMIDA helps the free market. I tried to explain that COMIDA is interventionist in the market, something that is antithetical to free market precepts, and that I agreed with him that the free market was flawed and needed much regulation and stimulation. I was wasting my time. He wasn’t getting it.
Maybe COMIDA is the invisible hand Smith spoke of…
Yeah, the one that slaps you upside the head
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