No Plan B yet for district on capital project

by Larry Austin
Grand Island Dispatch, November 13, 2009

Grand Island Central School Superintendent Robert Christmann likens the proposed $47 million capital project to the same improvements any homeowner would make to an aging house.

It’s a subject whose ramifications he learned first hand.

“Do you wait for your water heater to go and leak on the floor? I did that,” Christmann said. “You start to see some signs of a problem and you replace it. I waited, and I had a flooded basement because the water heater broke. And I knew that it was going, and I didn’t do it because I wanted to save some money. That’s the same thing with schools, just bigger numbers.”

The district will hold a referendum Tuesday, Nov. 17, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Grand Island High School gymnasium to let the voters decide if the school district can spend up to $47 million in capital improvements.

School Board members said Monday at a project forum in the high school auditorium that the highest priority needs include infrastructure improvements, upgrades to address health and safety concerns.

“Owning buildings is a little bit like owning a house,” School Board President Richard Little said. “You continually do repairs. You continually upgrade.”

To pay for the $47,369,800 maximum project cost, the district would tap into $5,383,699 it has in a capital reserve account, which district voters approved at a previous referendum. The state would pick up a large share, reimbursing the district at an 80 percent reimbursement rate for many expenses. The net local share after state aid to be paid by district taxpayers is $2,054,811.

Over the life of the bond, the district estimates that the average cost for a market value property of $100,000 would be $9.75 per year.

About a dozen people attended the forum, one of at least 10 such information sessions available to the public to ask questions of board members and school administrators on topics regarding the capital project. Most events have been sparsely attended.

During the forum, one attendee suggested the district offer a pared-down project at a lower cost. Little said later the board has yet to discuss a second option in the event the $47 million referendum fails. Another, a retiree, worried that the school taxes have risen at such a pace that they would push him off the Island, unable to afford the taxes on his home.

“We’re trying to maintain a positive outlook,” Little said. “We’ve offered as many opportunities for the public to come in and hear what we hope to do and to voice their concerns or any questions they have. It’s been a limited response from the public.”

The project has been carefully constructed to maximize the state aid available and minimize the impact on the local taxpayer, given the complex aid formulas the state uses, proponents of the project said.

“Ultimately something has to be done,” he said. “What that is and what level it is, what’s the right amount? A $2 million local share is a pretty insignificant amount. If you take that small component out of this project, it cuts this project in half, and it’s funny how that works, but that’s how the aid ratio impacts the project.”

Christmann said in the event the referendum fails, there is no current second option to address improvements.

“At this point there is no Plan B. The board hasn’t had any discussion at all. They may pick it up again, or they may just say the community has spoken. They have the option of doing something to retool it or not,” Christmann was asked who would pay for the health and safety improvements, absent a capital project account. For example, a small electrical fire that damaged Sidway Elementary School’s fire alarm system in October has put the district on the hook for 100 percent of its repair.

“We had to get that repaired. It had to be done,” Christmann said. “In fact, we had two people that we had to hire to patrol the halls. They walked the first floor, they walked the second floor, and that was required when you didn’t have the alarm system. And because it was so old and we couldn’t get the parts, we had to put a new system in. We had no choice. That system that we put in is coming out of the budget because it’s not part of an approved capital project.”

“You’re going to find these things are going to keep coming up, and it’s going to have a greater cost long-term to the community than it will having the state pay the 80 percent share of it,” Christmann said.

“In the long run, it clearly will cost money because the work that has to be done will need to be done on the health and safety, and it will be paid for 100 percent by the taxpayers instead of 20 percent by the taxpayers.”

Little likened the capital project to make-work projects of the 1930s.

“I guess the flip-side to a lot of the comments I’m hearing is what helped the economy through the Great Depression was public works projects that generated jobs,” Little said. “This is a great opportunity for us to bring it right here to our district at a very minimal local share.”

“Right now this is what we’ve worked towards for two years and we hope that the public can see this is a great opportunity to fund something at a very minimal local share, take advantage of the tax that we’ve been paying into the pool for a local time and bring a project here, a capital project, that will stimulate the local economy too,” Little said. “You’re talking about two years of work in construction going on in this local community.”

“It’s a great opportunity for this district,” Little concluded.

“This whole board is unanimous behind this project,” School Board member Glenn Bobeck said. “None of us has any agendas. We came up with the best $47 million project that we felt was necessary for the district at this point in time. That’s what we’re presenting to the voters, and we respect and hope that the community recognizes that this board is doing what they feel is best and vote positively for it.”