Marilyn Anderson Moves Forward to Secure School Funding

Marilyn Anderson moves forward with her idea

Marilyn Anderson didn’t say too much at the “[intlink id=”11976″ type=”post”]Way Forward” meetings convened by Fred Klein[/intlink] in April. These meetings were to see if community members could reach a consensus on how to move forward on making Orcas public school facilities safe and healthy.

But Marilyn  did volunteer to serve on the [intlink id=”11981″ type=”post”]follow-through Finance Committee[/intlink], to engage community financial expertise, and then an idea came to her and she decided to run with it.

“It started with an anonymous donor who wanted to help match the funds from the State…that’s what got my attention….making up the match…and then the two additional donations  offered more encouragement that others might feel the same way. ”

With $7,500 in contributions from the three donors, Anderson became convinced that the community could help out with the $1 million still needed to pay the $1.7 million repair costs.

Finance Group member Fred Klein added, “The first donations came forward totally unsolicited, with the intent of reducing the amount of money the board would be ultimately asking of taxpayers in these difficult times.

“It is our hope that others may contribute in the spirit that inspired Marilyn.”

Anderson shared the idea, and made the commitment to the Orcas Island School District Board, at the special school board meeting last Monday night — she will put together $100,000 in contributions towards the grant match loan to [intlink id=”12234″ type=”post”]repair elementary school energy systems [/intlink]this summer.

The result is that the loan requested by the school district from Cashmere Bank will be $900,000, instead of $1 million.  The amount of money taxpayers will be asked  for in order to repay the loan and the financing charge will be lower.

The long-range plan of the Finance Group (consisting of Anderson, Chris Sutton, Patricia Slabaugh, Wally Gudgell and Fred Klein) is  to fund a community awareness campaign to promote passage of a levy or bond to fund school repairs and building replacement.

The group decided to respond to the immediate, “emergency” repairs to the elementary school and “see what we could do to assist in meeting the challenges of funding these projects by adding to the [$7,500] gifts,” Anderson tells other prospective donors in  letters to be sent out this week.

Anderson pledged  to the school board that she personally will guarantee that the school receives $100,000 towards the elementary school maintenance project. She said the “Way Forward” meetings “inspired us. There’s a lot to do — a long agenda — and we would like to help with repairs.

“This way, you can re-assign the money to spread the work. Some of us feel strongly about the elementary school building and saw you were going to go for a loan from  Cashmere [Bank] for $1 million; after some discussion, we’re  ready to guarantee $100,000.”

The board questioned some of the technicalities of Anderson’s initiative. Patricia Slabaugh, member of the Finance Group  formed at the close of the consensus meetings, told the school board, “This is Marilyn’s personal guarantee.”

School board Director Scott Lancaster said that past experience of dealing with unforeseen situations was “the main reason for me to go for the million [dollar loan.] God forbid that ever happens in this school project… what would be the process if we run into a problem and we need to access that money,?”

Anderson assured the group that the $100,000 could be accessed at any time. Documents will be drawn up so that the funds can be immediately available. The funds from the “targeted donors” will be stewarded by the Orcas Island Community Foundation.

The board accepted Anderson’s pledge, and voted to revise the loan amount downward to  $900,000.

Following the meeting School Board Chair Janet Brownell said, “Marilyn Anderson’s effort to find private funding to reduce the burden to the school district is a heroic act in support of our public schools. I am humbled by such a champion of our district.”