Poway California, population 47,811 as of 2010, has placed an enormous bet on rising home prices and tax revenues. Poway borrowed $105 million but will not start to pay that amount back until 2033 at which time they will owe $877 million in interest.



Clearly this would be fiscal insanity anywhere, but it is especially true in California given Proposition 13 that caps property taxes.



The Voice of San Diego reports Where Borrowing $105 Million Will Cost $1 Billion: Poway Schools



Last year the Poway Unified School District made a deal: It borrowed $105 million from investors to fund a final push in its decade-long effort to revamp aging schools.



Without increasing taxes, the district couldn’t afford to borrow money in the conventional way. So, instead of borrowing from investors over 20 or 30 years and paying the debt down each year, like a mortgage, the district got creative.



With advice from an Orange County financial consultant, the district borrowed the money over 40 years in a controversial loan called a capital appreciation bond. The key point for the district: It won’t make any payments on the debt for 20 years.



And that means the district’s debt will keep getting bigger and bigger as interest on the loan piles up.







As well as being expensive, capital appreciation bonds work by tapping future growth in property values to pay today’s debts, a concept considered by many in the school bond business to be both risky and inequitable. In 1994, the state of Michigan banned school districts from issuing bonds like this, deeming them too toxic to taxpayers.



Nevertheless, California’s ever-strapped districts have increasingly looked to capital appreciation bonds to raise money for improvements without increasing taxes on current residents. Across the state, districts have borrowed billions this way, using exotic financing to shift the burden for paying for today’s school construction to future generations of Californians.



"This is way worse than loan sharking," said Michael Turnipseed, executive director of the Kern County Taxpayers Association in central California, which has lobbied the state Legislature to tighten laws on school district borrowing. "And Poway is the poster child. What they have done is absolutely insane."



Last year, the district put together its deal to borrow $105 million, without paying anything towards the debt for 20 years.



In two decades’ time, taxpayers will start paying about $50 million a year towards the loan. They’ll make those payments for the next 20 years or so.



It’s a bit like a massive version of one of those exotic loans that got homeowners into so much trouble.



With one key difference: For the next 20 years, Poway Unified isn’t even paying the interest.