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Taxpayers of the Hollidaysburg Area School District should take some time to contemplate the full scope of the district's costly needs before they succumb to the knee-jerk reaction of heaping criticism on the current school board and administration.
That's because the district's current financial concerns have been accumulating for years, because prior boards and officials were content to "kick the proverbial can down the road" rather than addressing the district's growing needs when they could have been resolved for much lower cost.
It is easy to say "we were fiscally responsible" by not making tough decisions for x-number of years when, what really was happening, was the "foundation was being poured" for much higher tax bills when needs could no longer be ignored.
"Ignored" is a tough word when school districts and municipal governments look at their needs and their financial data and realize that taxpayers will be victimized once again, not only for money needed immediately, but also for the funds needed for paying principal and interest on bond issues that generally involve decadeslong paybacks.
Again, there are others in the Hollidaysburg Area School District's "boat" and not all involve schools and municipal needs. Blair County seat residents need only look down the road toward the county courthouse and acknowledge that what has led to their school system's financial woes also is the reason that the proposed new county prison project has become such an expensive venture.
We have said it before in this space: Some past boards of county commissioners could have saved Blair taxpayers many millions of dollars if, instead of bragging about their fiscal responsibility, they would have acknowledged that an "ancient" prison wasn't going to meet the county's needs many more years -- and then built a new one.
Had they done that, a bond issue or issues would, by now, be well on the way toward being paid in full, and current county officials could be brainstorming other important needs rather than still being mired in what has to be the most basic decision: deciding where to build the new incarceration facility.
Had prior Hollidaysburg Area School Board members and administrators had the foresight and, more importantly, the courage, to begin attacking the current needs before they became critical, the school system might now be set to implement some exciting new educational possibilities for students, rather than spending millions of dollars on roof work that most taxpayers probably won't ever actually see.
So, that's where the Hollidaysburg school system now finds itself -- trying to figure out how to scale back proposed renovation projects, with those items that will be axed presumably costing much more when they finally return to the district's agendas.
In the meantime, district taxpayers have good cause to ponder and feel uneasy about Superintendent Curtis Whitesel's reference to a "looming fiscal 'cliff'" for the district.
Couple that with the possibility of a significant tax increase related to the 2025-26 fiscal year and that plants the seeds for criticism and controversy, going forward.
But much of the current challenge could have been avoided if the bogus "fiscally responsible" self-praise had been substituted with the attitude of "let's do the work now, when prices are much lower than they likely will be years hence."
Too often school districts, municipal governments and county leaders hope for financial miracles. There is plenty of evidence here now -- in the tax burdens ahead -- that awaiting such a miracle is a foolish exercise positioned just to fail.