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Worksheet Grade 10 Social Studies & Civics

Ralston's Question 3 Water Bond: A Grade 10 Ballot Worksheet

A grade 10 worksheet on a fictional ballot question asking Ralston voters to approve a $48 million water bond, with debt service and affordability math.

Objectives

  1. Students will restate what a municipal bond ballot question asks voters to approve.
  2. Students will calculate annual debt service, per-account cost, and percent bill impact from stated figures.
  3. Students will evaluate the bond's trade-offs for ratepayers, the city, and future residents.

Vocabulary

Municipal bond
A loan a city or utility takes from many investors to pay for big projects like a new treatment plant. The utility pays the money back over many years, with interest, using customers' water bills.
Debt service
The money a utility must pay back each year on loans it took out to build big projects, much like a family paying its mortgage. These payments come out of customers' water bills.
Ratepayer
A person or business that pays a utility bill. Ratepayers provide most of the money that keeps a water system running.

Also: principal, interest, affordability

Teacher overview

Cities rarely pay for big water projects out of one year's budget; they borrow through municipal bonds and repay the debt over decades, often only after voters approve. This worksheet puts students in front of a single ballot question from the fictional city of Ralston and asks them to do what an informed voter would: read the question, work out what it costs a household, and weigh what happens if it fails. The affordability item uses a widely used rule of thumb, built from two EPA benchmarks, that treats combined water and sewer costs above roughly 4.5 percent of household income as a high burden; EPA itself has no single official cutoff.

Ralston's Question 3 Water Bond: A Grade 10 Ballot Worksheet — Grade 10 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read the ballot text and background, then answer the questions. The fictional city of Ralston has placed this question before voters.

Question 3 (as it appears on the ballot): "Shall the City of Ralston issue up to $48 million in water revenue bonds to rebuild the Eastside treatment works and replace failing water mains, with the debt repaid over 30 years from water rates?"

Background: With interest included, city finance staff estimate total repayment at $78 million over the 30 years. Ralston's water system serves 24,000 accounts. The typical household now pays $46 a month for water and $32 a month for sewer. A city flyer states that if Question 3 passes, the typical water bill will rise by about $9 a month.

  1. In one or two sentences, state what Question 3 asks voters to approve and how the debt would be repaid.
  2. Using the background figures, how many dollars of the $78 million total repayment is interest rather than principal?
  3. If the $78 million is repaid evenly over 30 years, what is the annual debt service in dollars?
  4. Divide the annual debt service by Ralston's 24,000 accounts. About how much is that per account per year, to the nearest dollar?
  5. The flyer claims the typical bill will rise about $9 a month. Divide your answer to item 4 by 12 and state whether the math supports the flyer's claim.
  6. The typical water bill is $46 a month before the increase. What percent increase is a $9 rise, to the nearest tenth of a percent?
  7. After the increase, a household would pay $55 for water and $32 for sewer each month. For a household earning $30,000 a year, what percent of income goes to the combined bills, and is that above or below the 4.5 percent high-burden level in the rule of thumb built from EPA benchmarks?
  8. Name one group in Ralston likely to campaign for Question 3 and one likely to campaign against it, and give each group's strongest reason.
  9. The bonds spread the cost over 30 years instead of charging current customers all at once. Give one argument for why spreading the cost this way is fair.
  10. If Question 3 fails and the mains keep failing, state one likely consequence for the city and its ratepayers.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: It asks voters to let Ralston borrow up to $48 million to rebuild the Eastside treatment works and replace failing mains, repaying the debt over 30 years out of water rates. Full credit requires both the purpose and the repayment source.
  2. Answer: $30 million. Total repayment of $78 million minus the $48 million principal leaves $30 million in interest.
  3. Answer: $2.6 million per year. 78,000,000 divided by 30 equals 2,600,000.
  4. Answer: About $108 per account per year. 2,600,000 divided by 24,000 equals 108.33, which rounds to 108.
  5. Answer: Yes, the math supports the claim. 108.33 divided by 12 is about $9.03 a month, which matches the flyer's "about $9."
  6. Answer: About 19.6 percent. 9 divided by 46 equals 0.1957, which is 19.6 percent when rounded to the nearest tenth.
  7. Answer: About 3.5 percent, below the high-burden level. Combined bills of $87 a month equal $1,044 a year, and 1,044 divided by 30,000 is 0.0348, or about 3.5 percent, which is under the roughly 4.5 percent rule-of-thumb threshold.
  8. Answer: Accept reasonable pairings, such as construction trades, the utility's engineers, or downtown businesses for it, because the work brings jobs and reliable service, and fixed-income ratepayer groups or landlords against it, because bills rise for every account regardless of income.
  9. Answer: Accept any sound fairness argument, such as that the new plant and mains will serve customers for decades, so future customers who benefit should share the cost rather than current customers paying the whole amount now.
  10. Answer: Accept any well-reasoned consequence, such as more emergency main breaks and service outages, higher repair costs paid at emergency rates, or a repeat ballot measure later at a higher price.

Differentiation

Support

Provide items 3 and 4 with the division already set up and labeled, and allow a calculator throughout. Pair students for items 8 through 10 so the evaluation items are discussed aloud before writing.

Extension

Have students rewrite the flyer's claim as a fuller disclosure, stating the monthly increase, the percent increase, and the number of years, and then explain which version voters are more likely to trust and why.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "bond," "principal," "interest," and "ratepayer" with a simple borrowed-money timeline showing borrowing now and repayment over 30 years. Allow items 1 and 8 to be answered in short phrases rather than full sentences.