1
Josh Vojtush
Steven Myers
3250: 226 - 001
4 September 2013
After reading the first six chapters of Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson, I have brought up an approachable and relative example that has both previously and currently had an effect on the community where I live. I graduated from Nordonia High School in 2009, in 2007 there was a levy activated that would be used to fund a new football stadium. There will be a diagram to follow showing that even the future will be compromised since there will be consequences to the using of the levy revenue for a new football stadium to replace one that was adequate.
Hazlitt mentioning the broken window fallacy and how something must be compromised in order to allow something else to happen, otherwise you are a bad economist and only realize the immediate effect. Therefore, my example of the taxes that went towards my local high school’s athletic facilities were use of money that could have been put to much better work academically. The money taken could have been left in the taxpayer’s pockets in order to purchase school supplies or other commodities further stimulating the economy at every level.
The following quote is the reason the Board of Education had as to why the previous facility couldn’t just be upgraded and had to be demolished and rebuilt.
“Over two years ago a task force was established, which included community members, coaches,
administrators, and representatives from the Board of Education. Their task was to review and
provide recommendation(s) to the Board of Education for a plan that provided the most
efficient use of the land available and included the upgrading of all outside facilities – not
just the stadium at the High School, in addition to being highly cost effective. The committee
worked with an architectural firm who helped to layout and design the most efficient plan.”
("Nordonia News" October 2007)[i]
Sure, the plan may have been as efficient as possible, but there were teachers that had been laid off, textbooks that were going out of date, and desks that were starting to fall apart. There were a few new school wings where everything was the opposite, why not renovate the entire school instead of replacing our totally sufficient football stadium?
("Simplified Financial Forecast" 2012)[ii]
What good did the new facility do? Did it add value to the school? Did it increase revenue and bring families into the area to enroll their children for a better education, and in turn increase the value of everything in the area? From these forecasted values, it’s looking like the athletic facilities were just a waste of taxpayer dollars that could have gone into a better plan for academic success instead of upgrading a satisfactory stadium. There is of course, revenue from the stadium as far as tickets and concessions go, but I remember the stadium being packed before replacing it with an updated model. I was unable to find financial data on the revenue of the stadium itself to compare the old with the new facility.
[i]Nordonia Hills City Schools, "Nordonia News." Last modified October 2007. Accessed September 4, 2013.
[ii]Nordonia Hills City Schools, "Simplified Financial Forecast." Last modified 2012. Accessed September 4, 2013. Simplified Financial Forecast.pdf.