"Comments from an Interested Person re: Florida Supreme Court Ruling that may Require School Districts to Get Voter Approval for Certificates of Participation (COPS)"

They have been using this tactic to get bond issues without voter approval - or even taxpayers' knowledge - for a long time. Districts have money from sold bonds that they have kept on deposit for years - money on hand but kept idle - while the districts have paid the costs and interest on the bonds, the funds obtained through the bonds have frequently remained unproductive - and the whole issue of bond issues producing money that does nothing for the school system or the students (or the taxpayers) continues to warrant further scrutiny.  For many years, the MD system would lose on the situation (they coined the term "negative arbitrage") to such an extent that the funds equal to the amount needed to build a new elementary school were completely wasted every budget year due to paying the net costs of bond issue produced funds that sat in accounts - unused and unproductive - for each of many consecutive years. 

It is like taking huge loans to complete construction projects that are never even begun - so while the projects are "on the books" its only on paper, no construction is done of those particular projects, the bond issue produced funds sit in accounts that earn less interest than the interest the district must pay to bond holders, and it is all a drain on the construction program and its legitimate stated objectives.  Misuse of a system of funding and inadequate oversight.  There is a lot more to the leak filled pipeline of school construction funds that has ever been thoroughly explored and exposed.  Solid information was developed by the oversight board in Miami-Dade a few years ago, but it has not been acted upon at any level and the games continue, at the expense of the students, teachers, and taxpayers.