[dware]

S’ok...here in CO, we’re building new, technologically advanced schools with pot tax revenues.

[Cobra64]

Wasn’t Obama’s 1 trillion dollar “Stimulus Package” going to repair our infrastructure: schools, bridges, roads, and provide “shovel ready” jobs? Where did that money go?

[kabar]

Immigration is killing our school systems. In Fairfax County, VA, just a couple of years ago, the costs for 1,000 ESOL teachers was over $100 million a year.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/district-29583-building-new.html

Our local school district spent $38 million (up to $55 million with loan interest) on their headquarters. This overpriced temple to themselves led to a number of people to be recalled. Just one example of the complete waste done by school districts.

[Bubba Gump Shrimp]

Nearly 70% of my local school budget is legacy costs. That is, pensions, disability and retirement benefits.

Factor in that tax revenues are down because our property values have sunk, and our district cannot float any more bonds with any measurable interest, the schools fall apart and spending on students is crushed.

Our state lottery money (25 years ago) was passed with the stipulation that the money went to the schools. Of course it does, but they just cut the same amount out of the school budgets.

Not that it matters, the schools here will go belly up, we cannot reduce our legacy liability, nor cut any of the unions (there are several) wages that rely on school funding. It’s in our state Constitution that those benefits cannot be cut for any reason, and as a matter of fact, must increase a certain percent (based on the union contract) each year.

For our state, the only recourse will be bankruptcy, and a judge changing our Constitution based on restructure.

We are not far from that point.

[Seruzawa]

Schools investigate themselves and discover that they need another 46 billion. Lol!

[kcvl]

Rick Fedrizzi currently chairs the Scaling Sustainable Buildings Action Network of the Clinton Global Initiative.

https://www.clintonfoundation.org/blog/authors/rick-fedrizzi

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), co-founded by current CEO Rick Fedrizzi, Mike Italiano, and David Gottfried in 1993, is a private 501(c)3, membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in buildings design, construction, and operation.

LEED standards have been criticized for not actually creating energy efficient buildings.

In 2013, The Washington Examiner analyzed energy efficiency data of New York City buildings and found that LEED-certified buildings actually performed worse than buildings in general.[7] An analysis by USA Today found that building makers target LEED’s easiest points—those that don’t necessarily increase the energy efficiency of a building.[8] The USGBC admits that “current information indicates that most buildings do not perform as well as design metrics indicate. As a result, building owners might not obtain the benefits promised.”

Rick Fedrizzi gave a speech comparing the green movement’s challenges to that of past movements, from the vote for women to civil rights to gay rights, each of which there was significant push-back. He says they won because they were right and their detractors are wrong.

“We’re right when we design, build, and operate our buildings so that they reduce energy, keep costs down, and conserve our planet’s resources.”

“e’re right when we witness that green building is a powerful, world-changing force that can create millions of jobs here in the United States and lift people out of degradation and poverty around the world.”

“We’re up against powerful forces who want to accelerate mountaintop coal removal; fast track a Pipeline; or frack the Hell out of every square inch of green-space we have left. Forces who actually don’t want government buildings or college campuses to save energy, save water, and save money - they just want to claim they do: “Trust me...its Green.”

http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/rick-fedrizzi-defends-leed-attacks-naysayers-and-delivers-barn-burner-defense-green-building.html

Svenonia
Strong words coming from a guy who makes $500,000 a year running this “non-profit” USGBC. (did he ever even try to pass his own AP exam?)

[Zeppo]

The nation is spending about $46 billion less than what it needs to keep up its school buildings, according to a report Wednesday that pointed out disparities in state support for infrastructure.

The Associated Press reports those "findings" as if they were irrefutable facts, rather than merely being a self-serving report prepared by groups of self-interested rent seekers.

In the AP's spoon-fed story, no contrary opinion need apply. Good propaganda job there, AP. Keep up the good work...

[kcvl]

LEED is managed and overseen by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), which is not a government entity, despite what many think. The USGBC is a private — so-called "nonprofit" — environmental organization led by Rick Fedrizzi, the group's founder and president.

Fedrizzi earns a yearly salary in excess of $500,000 according to publicly available records. The group boasts 13,000 members, most of whom are architects, builders or building suppliers. Many of these members specialize in — and profit from — some of the products and construction designs that USGBC mandates in order for a new building to achieve one of its levels of LEED certification, according to the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

A building achieves LEED certification by earning credits that are spelled out by the USGBC. The credits, however, too often have little or nothing to do with energy efficiency. USA Today recently published a revealing three-part series that examined LEED. In those articles, it was noted that buildings could get a credit simply for having a LEED expert on its design team and that some schools received credits for teaching about green buildings in the classroom.

The Palazzo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas achieved LEED certification partly by installing bike racks in its garage, placing cards in rooms that tell guests when their towels are replaced and by establishing preferred parking for fuel-efficient vehicles. By gaining LEED certification, the owners of the hotel received at $27 million tax break.

The USGBC has quietly established a monopoly on green building construction with the federal and local governments. The General Services Administration, commonly referred to as the "landlord" for federal government buildings, mandates adherence to LEED standards for all new federal buildings.

Press Here

[Mannaggia l'America]

The Davis-Bacon Act should be repealed, at a minimum for school construction. It bloats the cost of school projects.

[Don Corleone]

The amount of money that has been stolen out of the governments coffers over the last 50 years would probably erase the national debt.

[DAC21]

Wow! It’s gonna take lot of libs screeming “it’s for the children” to come up with that kind of scratch.

[DAC21]

Wow! It’s gonna take lot of libs screeming “it’s for the children” to come up with that kind of scratch.