By the “Yes for Schools” Committee
If you have questions about the August school bond, the newly formed YES FOR SCHOOLS COMMITTEE wants you to check out their new website at: www.yesfororcasschools.com.
The committee came together after the last school bond was narrowly defeated. It consists of community members interested in seeing the passage of the reduced school bond in August. Members include: Scott Lancaster, Janet Brownell, David Kau, Justin Paulson, Keith Whitaker, Marian O’Brien, Kyle Freeman, Cathy Ferran, Barbara Kline, Mandy Randolph, Anne Ford McGrath, Lanie Padbury, Margie Doyle, Jeannie Beck, Gary Abood, and Madie Murray.
The YES website will be updated between now and the election in August. Right now the answers to the “Top Ten Questions about the Bond” are addressed on the site: 1) Why do we need this bond? 2) Over a period of years, our school facilities have deteriorated. Short-term ‘bandaids’ instead of investment in long-term solutions, have led to a reality where that is no longer a responsible choice. There are significant health and safety issues in virtually all of our school buildings and recent engineering studies have shown that the Middle School complex has reached the end of its useful life and must be replaced.
Why is a bond of $27 Million being proposed to provide for only 500 students? 3) It could be asked why it costs $350 Million to provide ferry service just for the 15,000 residents of San Juan County, and the answer would be similar in many ways.
In order to provide for the basic function – whether it is the education of K-12 students, or the transportation of people and cars across the Sound – there are fundamental needs in terms of facilities and equipment that must be met just to make the service possible. In a small school district, or an island county, the cost of these basic needs is always out of proportion to the number of users.
It is misleading to compare the lifetime cost of a facility or a system to the number of users at a fixed point in time. Instead, you have to consider the number of uses. (Otherwise, a ferry ride would cost $23,000) Over the course of the 50-plus year life expectancy of the proposed project, only accounting for students and staff, there will be over 5 Million daily uses of the school facilities just during the school days of the year. If you consider the extensive use of the facilities on weekends and during the summer, and you add in the substantial number of parents and other community members that routinely use the school facilities, that number balloons to closer to 10 Million uses. That represents a cost per daily use of only $2.70. For property owners, the tax to pay for the bond will be 54 cents per $1000 assessed property value. The most recent, retired, bond for the school district cost 52 cents per $1000 assessed property value.
Why can’t the school use the existing facilities in town? 4) As logical as this may sound, there are several reasons why it is not viable, First, it is simply not possible to get a class of 25 elementary students organized, walk them safely the two and a half blocks to the public library (the nearest existing facility), get them settled in, have any meaningful learning happen, then organize them again and walk them back to school, all during a 55 minute class period. Even if it were possible, it is doubtful the regular users of the library would appreciate the continual parade of different classes in and out of the library throughout the school day. Secondly, the use of any existing facilities that are privately owned would incur costs, which would have to be borne by the schools operating budget, which is already stretched to the breaking point. The repair and construction of school facilities impacts the capital budget and does not reduce the funds necessary to operate the education program. In addition, there are federal and state laws and liability concerns that make this option not possible.
Why now? Why not wait? 5) How will the district maintain the schools? 6) Although the problems with our school facilities were made worse by lack of maintenance funding, that was not the cause. No amount of maintenance could have prolonged the life of the 60-year-old pipes in the elementary school, or shear paneled the Middle School buildings, or made the High School siding a better product. The cause of these problems was lack of sufficient investment in the future of our schools.
The current Board and Administration have acknowledged that there is a need for improvement in the maintenance of the facility and has taken steps to address that need. A new Facilities Manager has been hired and is developing a maintenance plan for the campus. The District has also increased the custodial and maintenance staff by 30%. The Board is committed to designing and building facilities that require less maintenance and that are made with durable, long- lasting materials. The new buildings being proposed will come with extensive maintenance and operations programs, which will be implemented by our new facilities manager.
What has the bond development process involved to this point? 7) Over the past four years, the Board and Administration have conducted dozens of public meeting and workshops, employed numerous expert consultants, and extensively polled the staff and community to determine the District’s needs. A comprehensive set of Educational Specifications was created, reviewed and revised, in order to describe those needs in detail. The Board then held lengthy interviews with nearly a dozen architectural firms to find the most experienced and qualified people to design the project and, as a result, hired Mahlum as the project architects. Mahlum then reviewed the Ed Specs once again, to confirm those needs and develop an estimate of the cost.
Does the project include new programs and buildings? 8) Actually, the revised project, as represented in the $27 M bond, does not include the addition of any new programs or buildings. All of the new construction will replace buildings that exist, but have reached the end of their useful life and must be torn down. The space for certain programs needs to increase and the space for others will be reduced, with virtually no overall net increase in the size of the campus as a whole. The current space is being utilized at more than 100%. Some programs are already borrowing space in other buildings, or using hallway or storage space for educational activities, so all existing space must be rebuilt.
What about the Vocational Education building and the OASIS program? 9) The Vocation Education program already exists, with spaces in several buildings. It includes the art and computer lab spaces in the high school, the wood shop and applied physics spaces, and the home economics classroom in the Middle School. The importance of Vocational Education is widely recognized and is critical to the comprehensive education of all students, offering them the best opportunity for successful future careers. The District receives enhanced funding for all students enrolled in this program.
OASIS is actually a separate, K-12 school, and is the third largest of the District’s five schools, with an enrollment approaching 150 students. Although most of those students do not reside locally, there are many that do, and there is a pressing need for conference, office and storage space for the OASIS staff. OASIS is currently borrowing space from other District schools.
To get a sense of the importance of this school to the District, consider this: even if the enrollment in OASIS remained what it is today (it is projected to grow by as many as 50 more students), those students would generate almost $14 million in state apportionment revenue for the District over the life of this bond.
How will this bond directly benefit the economy of our community? 10) The Board is actively working with the architects and with local contractors to identify elements of the project that can be completed under the ‘small works’ provision, which allows the District the opportunity to hire locally. Several sub- projects have already been identified, which could be scheduled as soon as the bond passes – even before the overall project has been designed.
The School Board has committed to doing whatever it takes to direct as much of the construction budget as possible into the local economy. The School Board has applied to use the state’s General Contractor/Construction Manager (GC/CM) process, which will allow the District to hire a general contractor to begin working with the architect during the design phase, creating policies and identifying efficiencies that could potentially allow up to 30% of the work to go to local contractors. This method of construction management would immediately create the potential for a new job, as the District would be hiring a construction manager for the project.
The general contractor would work directly with the architects throughout the design phase of the project, which could significantly reduce the number of change orders and cost overruns, thus reducing the amount spent for contingencies. The process also requires the contractor to sign off on a guaranteed price once the project is 90% designed, thus transferring substantial financial risk from the District to the contractor.
There will also be an indirect infusion to the local economy, as the contractors and crews spend money locally for subcontracting, equipment rentals, small purchases of supplies, meals, lodging, and other immediate expenses.
How can we be sure that the bond money will be spent as advertised? The YES COMMITTEE will also have a presence at the Farmers’ Market starting on June 19th through to the election in August.
If you have questions or issues you’d like to see discussed on the website, or wish to contact the Committee, email Janet Brownell at maxdigger@hotmail.com. The YES Committee is also seeking donations from anyone who would like to support the passage of the bond. Donations may be sent to: YES FOR SCHOOLS Committee,
P.O. Box 942, Eastsound, WA 98245. Checks should be made payable to the Yes For Schools Committee.
