Overpriced Playgrounds
Bureaucratic Price Gouging Reigns
By Daniel Muniz

How much money does it cost to install a playground?

Millions of families with young children have placed playground equipment of various sizes and price ranges in their own backyards for decades and nearly all of them fought hard to stick to a budget. However, when it comes to governmental entities, especially schools, budgets are often the least considered item for even a small project like a playground.

After all, school districts can tap into an endless supply of money called the taxpayer.

My house is situated in the Northeast Independent School District (NEISD) of San Antonio Texas. In that large district, the Windcrest Elementary School began a rather extensive endeavor to install a new playground. The task entailed quite a number of workers who toiled for several weeks. It became obvious that such an involved effort over a long period time for only a playground had the potential to produce an eye popping price tag.

As a result, someone asked my favorite columnist, Roddy Stinson of my local newspaper The Express News, about the playground. After a bit of sleuthing, Roddy published his findings in his column of the paper.

He explained that the playground was part of a “bond package approved by NEISD voters.” As for the elementary school, the project was actually divided into two playgrounds; one for the kindergarten and first grade while the second one was for the rest of the grades.

And the total cost amounted to a staggering $116,308.

That is a scandalous price for just installing playground equipment. Roddy Stinson went on in his column to itemize the cost of each component as:

The price tags for many of these items are more appropriately suited for the construction of a building or some other infrastructure instead of for just installing playground equipment. Sadly, the playground itself represented a mere fraction (around 7 percent) of the total cost of the project. And it was also the least expensive of out of everything involved.

It is shameful that it costs the school district $107,808 to install $8,500 worth of equipment.

For such a small physical area to start out with, this is a disgraceful rip-off to involve so much capital and manpower. However, the general contractor didn’t mind quoting such a confounding bid and the district didn’t mind shelling out the money for the over-priced expenditure because schools like big budgets.

Unfortunately, this happens all the time with my school district and it happens all over the country.

Schools want big budgets and the projected tax dollars that go along with it. And to pay for the largesse, our education system’s trump card is that they can always pander to a community’s fear. That is, any time that a district runs low on funds; it can easily promote a sob story about how our schools won’t have any money to buy books to teach our kids or pay its teachers.

It is irrelevant how much bloat and excess that they already have in their infrastructure and bureaucracy. And for the most part, our education system doesn’t have to worry about efficiency and fiscal restraint as long as they can persuade voters how desperate they are to teach our children.

But reforms for our schools have to take place, especially in oversight of their spending. And just because a district has a smaller budget the next time around doesn’t mean that it is being punished. Private companies and hard working families always have to find ways to cut costs so that they can live within their means. Our education system has to develop that kind of fiscal mentality too.

And it doesn’t have to draconian or brutal either.

First of all, like many government projects, most of the items for this playground are either unwarranted or can be greatly scaled back and still serve its purpose. However, the intent of a boondoggle like this is to benefit the general contractor and fatten the district's budget.

Second, there are lots of creative and imaginative ways to get the public involved for volunteer time, especially if it can be interpreted as saving on taxes. Not only homeowners of the school district can participate but also the business community. Many companies like to encourage their employees to volunteer their time for a good cause.

The mind set of our education system is that of a leech but it doesn’t always have to be that way. Input from the local community and the taxpayer can go a long way to transform our public schools from greedy money grubbers to a public-private partnership.

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