State money tagged for school health and safety
Local educators declare capacity problems
By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer
In his budget message to state legislators last week, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne
announced a plan that would give state funds to Idaho schools for the construction and
maintenance of buildings. If approved, the measure would be a first for Idaho—a state
that doesn’t have a track record for spending money on the bricks and mortar of
education.
Kempthorne’s "life safety loan program" calls for
earmarking up to $2.5 million statewide for paying interest on school bonds districts take
out to improve health and safety aspects of buildings.
Over a period of 20 years, the investment would total between $40 million
and $50 million.
"There is consensus that we have critical life safety needs at our
school facilities of up to $50 million," Kempthorne announced. "Idaho cannot
afford to risk the health and safety of our children."
The measure may seem like a timely windfall in light of Blaine County
School District’s current desire to fund more than half a dozen facilities projects
totaling nearly $40 million. According to Superintendent Jim Lewis, however,
Kempthorne’s plan won’t have much effect on those projects.
For the most part, that’s because the needed improvements to district
facilities don’t involve health and safety issues.
According to a statewide assessment of school facilities, Blaine County
schools need to spend only $1,486 on health and safety.
During an interview at the district office Monday, Lewis said, "I
would give each facility an A+ in health/safety maintenance."
A more important issue, as far as Blaine County is concerned, is the
ever-expanding population that has teachers at some schools floating among scarce
classrooms and students learning in ill-equipped portable buildings.
The student body of Wood River High School has more than doubled in the
last decade, from 349 students enrolled in 1989 to 734 students in 1999. Administrators
expect the high school to reach the outer limits of its enrollment capacity within the
next three to four years.
Blaine County’s lack of use for Kempthorne’s proposal is not
unique. In the statewide facilities assessment, over 20 Idaho school districts said health
and safety were not major problems. Rather, they were concerned mostly with too-small
classrooms, leaky roofs and lack of computer hardware.
Lewis, at the direction of an ad-hoc panel of parents, educators and
business leaders calling themselves the Strategic Vision Facilities Committee, may soon be
asking the local community to pay for facilities improvements the state won’t touch.
A town meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Jan. 31 at the Wood River Middle
School could be the final step the committee takes to gather public input before asking
the school board to approve putting a $40 million plant facilities levy before voters.
If approved by voters, that levy would call for money to be allocated to
the proposed projects for a period of 10 years.
That’s a major advantage over the traditional school bonds districts
take out, said district financial officer Mike Chatterton, because it allows the district
to almost completely avoid paying interest.
Based on current interest rates, that could mean a savings of up to $25
million over 20 years.
Also, unlike the two-thirds majority vote needed to pass a school bond
initiative, the plant facilities levy currently under consideration would likely require
only a 55 percent majority vote.
Chatterton calculated that number based on a complicated set of rules that
takes into account the overall current indebtedness of the district, the amount of the
proposed levy and the value of current district facilities.
The last time Blaine County voters approved a levy for improving school
facilities was in 1993.
In that election, $16.2 million dollars went towards constructing the Wood
River Middle School, adding the science wing to the Wood River High School, adding a
multi-purpose room to Bellevue Elementary and constructing a new gymnasium at the Carey
School.
