The $29 Million Question…Part 6
Efficiencies and Savings
On April 7 voters in the ROCORI School District will be asked to approve a 25 year bond proposal of no more than $29,990,000 to build a new ROCORI Middle School and make needed enhancements to other district facilities. The proposal is district-wide in scope and the outcome of the referendum will affect every child in the district. This is the sixth in a series of articles designed to help voters as they study the issues in support of making an informed decision.
We cannot simply wish the shortcomings of the middle school building away. Over time they are only going to worsen and become more expensive to fix. At some point taxpayer investment will be required to sustain the current middle school facility, with or without use of a ballot box. We can choose to fix them now by approving the value-laden referendum proposal on this year’s ballot, and, over the long term, save a significant amount of money. Or we can choose to defer a decision to a later date, in which case the solutions may be of lesser quality and will probably cost more.
Consolidating the middle and high schools into one facility makes sense. To simply replace the middle school with another building, according to a 2007 professional study, was estimated at approximately $24 million. There is also about $9 million--in today’s dollars--worth of work at the high school that must be done to get that 40-year old facility to modern safety, construction, and educational standards. Were these projects to be combined together into a single referendum, that’s $35 million in round figures, or about $5 million more than the current proposal. Factoring in a 3-4% annual inflation rate, then what will it cost in the coming years?
Operating one facility instead of two makes sense. There would be only one kitchen and one cafeteria serving both schools instead of the two we now operate. Current duplicate spaces and services at the high school and middle school for the media center, Art, Band, Choir, Industrial Technology and Family and Consumer Science would be consolidated into a single building. The teachers for these classes would teach in one place all day. According to a recent district forecasts, moving into a single facility would save a minimum of $62,000 per year in utilities, space consolidation and travel costs. These savings would be immediate.
Additionally, the forecasts show that around $360,000 per year can be saved by personnel reductions enabled by moving to a consolidated campus.
While this sounds harsh, the school board’s concept for implementing these personnel reductions is to allow them to take place by the natural attrition caused by retirements, resignations, other personnel changes.
In total, a consolidated middle school/high school campus potentially saves the district from spending up to $400,000 per year in operating costs in the areas of utilities, staffing, and services. Over the 25 year life of the bond that amounts to about $16 million in savings. That money could stay in the general fund and be used to better educate our kids.
The citizen-developed proposal being put before voters will save the district money because we can stop throwing money after an aging and deteriorating building, and put our money towards a long-term solution. We won’t have to build the same thing twice, and that’s always cheaper.
The proposal makes extraordinary use of scarce resources and is a good investment. We put our money into the newest facilities and considerably extend their life span. If we were to replace the high school (already a 40 year old building) and the middle school with new, separate structures it would cost around $45 million. The current proposal, which essentially provides the same facility results, costs just under $30 million.
As to the matter of timing, the current economic conditions represent a historic opportunity to achieve dramatic savings. Interest rates on bonds are low—currently around 4%, and the bid climate is favorable. For the average taxpayer taxes will go up by $120 per year, or $10 a month, from current levels. If the economy was humming along and interest rates were at 6%, then the cost to the average taxpayer would be $147 per year, or $12.25 per month. Additionally, the tax increase will take place in the 2010 tax year, giving all of us ample time to adjust our individual budgets. If we wait till things get better, though, how much how much more tax will we end up paying?
This single referendum addresses the district’s major facility needs for the foreseeable future, and the cumulative value of our investment is significantly greater than our cost. While everything may not be new, we do get equivalent merchandise. It’s like buying a demonstrator vehicle--work the deal right and you get it cheaper than new, it’s worth more than what you paid for it when you drive it off the lot, and it’s cheaper to operate than “ole Betsy” that you traded in. Expressed in Central Minnesota terminology, that’s a “heckuva good deal!”
The writers are concerned parents of school-age children and co-chairs of the Build a New Middle School Referendum Committee.
by Barry Venable and Pat Salstrand
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