In Michigan, school districts’ long-term debt is just over $13 billion, according to the state’s Treasury Department. Nationally, school district debt has grown substantially, from nearly $323 billion in 2006 to $443 billion in 2016, according to U.S. Plenty of school district officials across the country likely feel the same way. There’s a lot more risk betting on a poorer district.” “When you gamble, you look for the best odds. “I can feel myself sweating just thinking about it,” DeKeyser said. The district was basically using a second credit card with a better interest rate to pay off another credit card’s debt. According to administrators, it also still owed about $60 million for long-term bonds, and was relying on a state loan to help make the $3.6 million in payments that would be due that school year. By 2014, the district had just $24,000 in the bank with a $600,000 payment coming due for salaries, benefits and day-to-day operating expenses recalls Superintendent Tom DeKeyser. The recession hit, and the local tax base fizzled. Voters approved nearly $48 million in bonds for remodeling and renovating existing facilities, adding the pool complex and construction of the new high school that would hold 100 more students than the previous building.
But the district was also luckier than most: The community was expecting a large-scale housing development to be built across the road from the high school, bringing with it a potential enrollment bump and the extra state dollars that would follow the additional students.
The district relied on seven portable classrooms, and some teachers were assigned to teach in modified storage closets. Its school buildings were outdated and overcrowded.
In 2003, before the Great Recession, Whitmore Lake was like thousands of other school districts across the country.