Major proposed change to the facilities plan

I interrupt this vacation from blogging just to make people aware of a proposal that’s on the board’s work session agenda for tomorrow night. The proposal would change the district’s facilities plan to greatly accelerate the schedule for the bond-funded construction projects. Instead of completing the projects by 2024, the district would complete them all by 2021, and some projects (such as the Tate and Alexander additions) would move from the end of the list to the beginning. You can see the details of the proposal here and in the other documents attached here.

I don’t immediately have an opinion about whether the acceleration is a good idea. Most of the air-conditioning projects were scheduled in the first three years anyway, so it’s not immediately clear to me that the proposal would get us to full air-conditioning any sooner. On the other hand, an accelerated schedule means building capacity additions even sooner than the district otherwise would, when it’s possible that the passage of time would show that enrollment doesn’t justify some of them. (There were at least some bond proponents who suggested that voters shouldn’t worry so much about the questionable capacity additions because the district had the time and the flexibility to change the plan if it needed to.) There may well be financial advantages and disadvantages to acceleration, though I hope the discussion of them is more careful than some of the discussion during the bond campaign. (See this post.) The acceleration would also mean that the full tax impact of the borrowing will occur sooner, and not on the somewhat more phased-in schedule the district identified during the bond campaign.

Whatever its merits, the proposal certainly does raise one question: Was the administration aware, during the bond campaign, that this change would be proposed just a month after the voters approved the bond? Were any board members or candidates aware? If so, why did they wait until after the election to raise it? Much of the debate around the bond proposal focused (reasonably) on the details of the underlying plan and on the degree to which a favorable vote would commit the district to that plan. Some candidates and bond proponents acted like any change to the facilities master plan would be an unthinkable mistake. Knowing that acceleration was possible (and maybe even in the works?) would have been helpful for voters as they were evaluating whether the $191 million bond proposal was worthy of their support. I’m not saying it would have changed the result—I could see it working either way, or having no effect—but why not be candid about it?

In any event, just one month after it seemed like everyone was talking about the bond proposal, virtually no one seems to be aware of a proposal to make significant changes to the underlying plan. So take a look. If you feel strongly about it one way or the other, let the board know—and post a comment here, too, if you’d like.

UPDATE: There’s an item on the agenda of the main meeting (which happens before the work session) asking the board to approve a “preliminary official statement” related to the bond issuance. By all appearances, this preliminary official statement assumes in advance that the board will vote to accelerate the projects. (I say that because the amount listed on the statement, $58.9 million, roughly matches the total of the figures given in the yellow columns here for the initial series of bonds under the accelerated proposal.) That seems like putting the cart before the horse, if the board intends to do any real deliberation over the acceleration proposal.

One thing seems never to change: When the administration proposes something, it always seems to be presented as so immediately urgent that it can’t wait even another two weeks. It seems unlikely that the board will have fully debated the pros and cons of acceleration when it votes on that resolution, or even after the one work session. Nor will it have gotten virtually any public input on the idea. What is the justification for rushing into such a big decision?

School board agenda for September 26

I had hoped to write a few more posts before my official departure from the board tomorrow night, but I’ve just been too short on time. I fully expect to go into semi-retirement from school politics once I’m off the board, but I imagine I’ll still blog from time to time. Stay tuned.

To the extent there are “sides” in local school politics, my side got decisively beaten in the election two weeks ago. The bond proposal passed and three of the four candidates I supported lost. (See news coverage here and here.) The bottom line is: That’s democracy. There’s no better way to measure what the community wants, and elections do have consequences. I still think the role of campaign money in this election is worth discussing, but that discussion can be for another time. I wish all the new board members well, and I hope the district makes the best of the trust the voters have placed in it with the bond vote.

The main event at tomorrow’s board meeting is the departure of the outgoing board members (Chris Lynch, Brian Kirschling, and me) and the swearing in of the new board members (J.P. Claussen, Ruthina Malone, Janet Godwin, and Shawn Eyestone).

The full agenda is here. Please chime in with a comment about anything that catches your attention.

“Brush-off culture” led to flawed bond plan

I wrote the following opinion piece that appeared in both the Gazette and the Press-Citizen. I have updated it and added links below.

As a school board member, I had hoped to be able to support the district’s facilities bond proposal. I’ve always voted for school bonds in the past, and I publicly supported the 2013 ballot proposition giving the district the initial funding for its facilities improvements. But I’m voting “No” on the proposal that’s on the September 12 ballot.

Many have discussed the substantive problems with the bond plan, which funds capacity expansions that extend seven years out on the timeline, in many cases without any enrollment projections showing a need for them. A more sensible proposal would bond for a couple of years of projects, then reassess capacity needs based on updated projections.

How did we end up with such an enormous proposal? I believe it’s the result of serious problems with the district’s decision-making culture. In short, the district is resistant to any community input that doesn’t support its preconceived conclusions.

This culture has affected many district decisions. For example, it’s at the root of the district’s troubles with special education. Special ed parents had raised concerns about the district’s practices for years, yet the problems were ignored until outside authorities intervened, ordering the district to stop violating the law. An employee who raised concerns about the district’s seclusion enclosures was terminated for insubordination.

A related example arose last year when the board extended the superintendent’s contract and committed to giving him two large pay increases. When the mother of a student in special ed wanted to object to that decision—in a well-reasoned, thoughtful comment—a board member rebuked her and warned her that she could be held liable for defamation. When three board members explained why they opposed the proposal, the superintendent warned them that district policy banned board members from publicly expressing negative judgments of him (though the policy does not prohibit favorable comments).

Administrative proposals have routinely come with one-sided arguments—all pro, no con—and are sometimes presented at the eleventh hour, giving the board little choice but to approve them. When 2,500 residents submitted a legal ballot petition on the demolition of Hoover School, the board rejected it. The district then spent scarce funds defending that decision, only to lose in court.

This same “brush-off culture” characterized the process that led to the bond proposal. The district held elaborate “listening posts” only to disregard the input it received. Many people had legitimate concerns about the size and content of the proposal, but rather than pursue compromise and consensus, bond proponents doubled down on the existing plan, putting an extraordinary seven years of projects into the bond. Anyone who had doubts was either uninformed or not supportive of “the kids.”

Such a closed environment is inevitably liable to capture by well-funded interests. Now we have an enormous bond proposal, with proponents raising huge amounts of campaign money—twenty or thirty times what a typical school board campaign costs—and with the large majority of it from a small handful of banks, developers, and construction interests.

This is the district on its best behavior, with its hand out for $191 million. If it receives that entire spending authority all at once, there will be little reason for it to change its ways.

Good decisions don’t come out of a culture that is so resistant to differing points of view. The bond proposal is one product of that culture, and it shows. The board should come back with a more reasonable proposal next year, and in the meantime should strive to show progress in repairing the district’s broken decision-making culture.

Updated campaign finance reports

Both sides of the bond campaign had to file contribution and expenditure reports today. The “Yes” side’s report is here; it’s previous reports are here and here. The “No” side’s report is here; its previous report is here.

So far, the “Yes” campaign has raised $99,429.16—that’s over thirty times what the average board candidate raised. Nineteen donors have given a total of $1000 or more; those donors accounted for almost two-thirds of the total. They are:

Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce	$ 17,500
Hills Bank	$   8,006.85
University of Iowa Community Credit Union	$   8,000
MidwestOne Bank	$   7,506.31
Southgate Development Service	$   4,000
Gary Watts Real Estate & Development	$   2,500
Neumann Monson, Inc.	$   2,000
Hayek, Moreland, Smith, Bergus, L.L.P.	$   2,000
Arlington Development, Inc.	$   2,000
Maxwell Construction	$   2,000
U.S. Bank	$   1,200
Houser Enterprises	$   1,000
RPB Properties, L.L.C.	$   1,000
Rohrbach Associates, P.C.	$   1,000
TLD, Inc.	$   1,000
Cedar Rapids Building Trades, CR/IC	$   1,000
Veridian Credit Union	$   1,000
Mark Moen and Bobby Jett (jointly)	$   2,000

On the “No” side, there were no $1,000 donors. The largest contribution was $250. So far they’ve raised a total of $2502. That means the “Yes” group has raised almost forty times as much as the “No” group.

School board candidates also filed campaign finance reports today. Here’s how much each candidate has raised (click on the candidate’s name to see the report):

Janet Godwin	$ 7,425.31
Ruthina Malone	$ 6,395
JP Claussen*	$ 3,352.89
Shawn Eyestone	$ 2,700
Charlie Eastham	$    985
Laura Westemeyer	$    770
Karen Woltman	$    760

*Includes $902.89 carried over from his previous campaign.

The biggest single contributor to school board candidates appears to be Adam Ingersoll, who gave $500 to Janet Godwin and $1,000 to Ruthina Malone (as well as $1,000 to the “Yes” campaign). Ingersoll is a college admissions test prep consultant.

Finally, the Save Hoover Committee raised $602.40 (including $382.40 carried over from the previous campaign cycle).

Contributions made after September 2 will not be reported until January.

No more temporaries!—er, never mind

When the district debuted its PowerPoint presentation about the bond, it contained a slide titled “No more Temporaries,” declaring:

It wasn’t long, though, before that slide was deleted from the presentation. Now the presentation promises only the “reduction of temporary classrooms.” Even the district’s own materials have to concede that kids will still be in temporaries after the entire $191 million is spent.

Where is this most likely? First, in the North Corridor. The district’s enrollment projections show virtually no growth in elementary enrollment in the area around Liberty High even ten years out. But in fact, in the time since our demographers made the projections, final platted developments including over two thousand units of housing have been filed in Coralville, as well as a smaller number in North Liberty. Drive around there and you’ll see it happening.

Second, at Alexander Elementary. Alexander is currently using four temporary classrooms and has already converted three interior common spaces into classrooms. And its enrollment is projected to grow. The bond plan gives it a four-classroom addition seven years from now.

Third, Hills Elementary. Hills currently has eight temporary rooms—four being used as classrooms and four as resource rooms. It receives nothing at all from the bond plan.

Is it too much to ask that after spending $191 million on facilities—including on three sets of blue-chip high school athletic facilities—we wouldn’t still have kids in temporary classrooms?

September surprise?

I can’t help wondering whether there will be a “September surprise” as the school election approaches on September 12. Two years ago, just five days before the board election, a glossy “City High Preview” appeared on the district’s website, apparently calculated to head off the growing momentum of candidates who questioned the Hoover closure. It came off mostly as a clumsy attempt by the bureaucracy to use public resources to influence the election. But you don’t expect the institution to just sit on its hands, do you?

I was reminded of that incident this week by candidate Janet Godwin’s remarks when asked about keeping neighborhood schools open (full context here):

The thing is that if we are able to expand City High, we’ll be bringing back career tech education to City High. We will be bringing forward automotive, engineering, architectural work, other kinds of construction, engineering, etc. Those sorts of programmings are going to be coming back to City High, and the principal at City High, working with the administration, is already outlining those plans.

Reader: There is nothing in the bond proposal, and nothing anywhere in the facilities master plan (FMP), about new career and tech facilities at City High. It’s not even in the September Surprise 2015 City High Preview! During the many board meetings and work sessions leading up to the bond proposal, not a word was spoken about such a plan, though board member Phil Hemingway kept trying to raise the topic of career and tech. The district has made it very clear that it cannot even publicly identify what the Hoover land will be used for. Moreover, any plan to change the City High project to add automotive, engineering, architectural, and construction facilities would almost certainly affect both the project’s price tag and its effect on the building’s capacity rating—which means (in theory, at least!) it couldn’t happen just on the administration’s say-so without formal board action.

It’s bad enough when bond proponents act like the facilities master plan is incorporated into the bond ballot language. (It’s not.) It’s even worse when they start discussing “plans” that aren’t even in the FMP. Still, I suppose it’s mildly encouraging that this year’s unsupported assertions focus more on career and tech than on parking and baseball.

UPDATE: Well, that didn’t take long. Right on cue, prominent bond supporter Mary Kate Pilcher Hayek asserts that she has a map showing where career and tech and athletic facilities will go on the City High site.

UPDATE #2: I was naturally curious about this, so I emailed the superintendent:

Hi, Steve. I notice that Mary Kate Pilcher Hayek says she has a map showing where career and tech and athletics facilities will go on the City High/Hoover property. She seemed to say that it was a district document. Is there such a document? If so, how do I square that with the response you gave me in May saying that the district would not be able to answer that question until after the first series of bonds is issued?

Thanks for any information,

Chris Liebig

His reply:

Good Evening Chris

I am unaware of any map with any such designations.

Steve

Friends of Horace Mann

Think about the position the Horace Mann Elementary community is in. They know how important that school is to the north side neighborhood. They want upgrades and renovations to the building—partly because the building needs it, and partly because they fear that without them, the district may close the school. The district itself has instilled that fear in them.

I think it’s a safe bet that the many bond supporters among the Mann community would also have voted “yes” on a smaller bond proposal, and may even have preferred one, as long as it included Mann (which it almost certainly would have). Instead, though, the school board majority chose to tie the Mann project to $180 million worth of other projects, in a plan that extends out seven years, closes an elementary school, includes capacity expansions that aren’t based on any enrollment projections, and yet still manages to make it likely that some parts of the district (e.g., at Alexander and in the North Corridor) will be stuck with temporary classrooms even after all the money is spent. With friends like that, Mann doesn’t need enemies.

But that’s the option that came out of the sausage grinder, and many Mann families would rather have a huge bond that includes Mann than wait for a better proposal next year. One consequence is that many Mann advocates, who admirably want to preserve and renovate an older elementary school in a central core neighborhood of Iowa City, have decided that it’s in their best interest to ally with people who want to close and tear down an older elementary school in a central core neighborhood of Iowa City.

I don’t support this bond proposal, but if many Mann families do, I can at least understand the position they feel they’re in. I wish our district hadn’t put them in that position.

As I wrote about more fully here, I was one of three board members who voted last week to allow three more weeks for community input on the schematic design for the Mann proposal before approving it. We’ve since received about two dozen emails from people on the proposal (which was the whole point of waiting). These emails have been almost uniformly in favor of moving forward with the district’s design proposal.

In the emails, some people specifically argue that the district’s proposal is better than any alternatives. Many of the emails, though, simply say that they want the project to keep moving forward. Some candidly admit that they wish the design proposal were different, but that they prefer keeping the project on track to having meaningful input into the design. Others have apparently been led to believe (possibly by prominent bond supporters) that the three board members voted down the entire Mann project, rather than simply to allow three more weeks for feedback.

I want to see the Mann project happen—I think it’s one of the best projects in the plan—but I know that a lot of people in the Mann community no longer see people like me as allies. The district has needlessly pitted Mann families against many people who support the project but not the larger bond proposal.

The institution’s message to Mann families on the design proposal is the same as its message to them on the bond plan, and the same as its message district-wide: Our job is to decide; your job is to vote “yes” on whatever we decide.

Radical ideas

Bond proponents are working hard to convince people that the district would never close a school right after investing a lot of money into it. That’s a bit of an uphill battle, given that the school board chose to invest almost $1 million on air conditioning and upgrades at Hoover after it decided to close the school. More importantly, we all know general fund money is tight. If we end up with significantly more capacity than we have students, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect more closure arguments: “Why pay to run twenty-one schools when all the kids will fit into eighteen or nineteen or twenty?” Ask any district where enrollment has fallen well below capacity. It’s especially reasonable to expect those arguments when some of our own administrators have been making them for years.

On the latter point, an interesting exchange occurred as the board started discussing possible revisions to the facilities plan last October. Board member Lori Roetlin asked whether it would make sense to build a pre-school center on available land in North Liberty, which would enable the district to expand preschool enrollment while also freeing up space currently being used for preschool in nearby elementary schools.

Director Roetlin: I just want to throw that out there, that there would be some efficiencies in doing that.

Facilities director Van Hemert: Yeah. Can I share my radical idea?

Superintendent Murley: No.

[Laughter]

Murley: Take care of that right now. It’s nine o’clock, quarter to nine. Yeah, that actually—there’s a lot of efficiencies to running a pre-K building, and we’ve actually talked about, there are advantages to considering different places in the district, just because of the transition issues that people have. If you work downtown, you’re not going to want to drive to North Liberty, so we might need a pre-K center up there, a pre-K center down here, and we’ve got some existing facilities that could serve that capacity if we were to move out, and do some changes to the plan and add new facilities in other places in order to take advantage of the some of the space we have right now.

. . .

So I think that’s the conversation we need to have between now and December, because one of the things—and Craig said this when we started out—the difference between the work that we’re doing right now, and the work that we’re proposing doing in the future, is we’ve got the ability now to take a look at what we’re doing and say, Ah, we’d like to change it. And we can do that. Once we pass the bond, we can’t do that. Now we’re locked into doing the things that we said we were going to do.

(Full recording here.)

The superintendent made it very clear that he was talking about decisions the board would make before settling on bond ballot language, and the board did not end up including any projects in the plan that would repurpose elementary buildings into preschool buildings. But it’s also true that the board ended up adopting very broad ballot language, and the district has changed its tune on whether we’re “locked into” a particular plan. I know of nothing that would prevent the district, after bond passage, from repurposing an elementary school into a preschool center or a new home for the programs at TREC, and potentially altering the listed projects accordingly, if a future board was so inclined.

We’ve seen over time (and even over the past few board meetings) that our facilities director has a very big say in the district’s plans for its buildings. For that reason, it would have been nice to hear his ideas about the right way to find space for pre-school. If he thinks it should happen, voters could reasonably conclude that there’s a good chance it will happen.

In any event, it’s natural to wonder, from the conversations the district has had for years, whether the future will bring more proposals to close or re-purpose existing elementary schools (especially if we do end up with hundreds more seats than we have students). And maybe people will even be persuaded that it’s a good idea! But we shouldn’t pretend that it’s somehow precluded by passage of the bond.

Wait, wait, wait—now hurry up!

Bond proponents have argued that even though the plan may be flawed, it’s important to approve it anyway because otherwise important projects will be delayed. It’s important to remember, though, that the district could easily have chosen to go to the voters last year, or even earlier, for approval of a bond. (I suggested it!) Then if it had failed, there would have been time to develop a better proposal without interrupting the timeline.

Instead, the board majority waited until the latest possible opportunity to put the question on the ballot—and now they’re using this self-created urgency to pressure people into voting Yes. I don’t blame voters if they don’t react well to being manipulated in this way.

School board candidate questionnaire responses

In my view, one of the best local developments in recent years has been the proliferation of candidate questionnaires leading up to elections. (I say that even though, as a candidate, responding to them all was a pretty grueling task.) The most comprehensive questionnaire has been that of the North Corridor Parents group. That group has now posted the questionnaire responses of all seven school board candidates in the upcoming September 12 election. You can read them here.

One of the candidates, Karen Woltman, will be posting links to other questionnaire responses on her blog here, where she has collected many other links to information about the election.

Is the district honest about community input?

“Keep it simple” because “the details get complicated.” In its bond presentation, the district presents that idea as summing up the feedback that we received at our community listening posts on the facilities plan and the bond. In fact, listen to the recordings: the district cherry-picked one person’s comment and presented it as the summary of feedback at three listening posts.

According to bond proponents (example here), those same listening posts showed “unified support” for putting seven years’ worth of projects into the bond proposal, resulting in the very high $191 million price tag. But take a look at the minutes of those listening posts (here, here, and here). Listen to the recordings. Is that assertion even remotely true? In fact, at two of the three listening posts, the tables weren’t even surveyed about how much of the plan should go into the bond. And to the extent there was discussion of the issue, the feedback was mixed, as even the minutes show. Or listen, for example, to what this man had to say. Somehow that wasn’t the comment cherry-picked for the PowerPoint slide. Unified support?

“Stick to the plan”? “We have a great plan”? “Just do it”? Read the minutes.

The district appears unable to resist the temptation to promote its desired conclusions by distorting the public input it receives. In 2013, for example, the district held community workshops on the development of the facilities master plan. At the final workshop—attended by hundreds of people—seventy-four percent of attendees supported plans that did not close Hoover Elementary School. (See also charts here and here.) Yet when the facilities committee presented its proposal to the school board, it stated that closing Hoover was a “common theme” of the feedback it received.

Proponents of the bond have repeatedly argued that the plan is the result of input from countless members of the public. But it’s easy to assert that the community input supports your point of view; after all, who’s going to go to the trouble of verifying the assertion? Given the examples above, though, I recommend you start asking for evidence.

Inflation and “keep it simple”

One of the themes we’ve heard from the district in its presentation of materials on the bond is “keep it simple,” because “the details get complicated.” (That particular slide attributes this sentiment to the listening posts we held earlier this year, but I attended all of those listening posts, and the only person who I remember saying “keep it simple” was the school board chair.) The “keep it simple” spirit is reflected in the district’s discussion of the issue of inflation. The district’s bond FAQ says:

To delay the remaining projects in the Facilities Master Plan will be expensive.
- Construction inflation is running at 3-5%. A one-year delay would increase the total plan costs as much as $5.6M - $9.4M dollars!
- Borrowing interest rates continue to rise. A one-half percent increase in the interest rate will increase borrowing costs in excess of $11M dollars.

To get the inflation “cost,” the district has apparently just multiplied the bottom line total ($191.5 million) by possible inflation rates. Is this an accurate way to discuss the cost of inflation?

No, because inflation affects both revenues and expenditures. That’s why we don’t all sit around kicking ourselves for not having bought all our possessions in 1971—I mean, look at how much cheaper everything was!  But of course, our paychecks were much smaller, too.

The district emphasizes the risk of inflation on the expenditure side, but conveniently ignores it on the revenue side. In that same FAQ, the district asserts that the effect of the bond on the tax rate “could decrease over time as the property tax base in the District continues to grow.” At our work sessions, it was emphasized that we should feel reassured about the tax rate because our tax base will grow at a rate of 4 or 5% annually. But not all of the growth in that number is attributable to growth in the amount of taxable property; some portion of it is simply inflation at work over time.

It’s a bit disingenuous to tell residents, “Don’t worry, the tax rate won’t be as high as it looks,” without adding, “Of course, that’s partly because your home’s assessment will go up.” It’s even more disingenuous to do that while simultaneously warning them about the effect of inflation on project costs.

And will interest rates rise? I don’t pretend to know, but I know that since 2008 many dire predictions about inflation and increasing interest rates have not been borne out (though they have often served people’s political purposes). For a counterpoint on interest rates, see here, here, and here.

Will local construction inflation outpace inflation in home values to an extent that will cost us money? Will inflation be offset by possible cost savings of scaling back projects that may not be necessary? The details get complicated! Does the district’s presentation of these issues show sufficient respect for the complexity of the issue and for the voters’ intelligence? Judge for yourself.

The future of Hills Elementary (continued)

What should people make of the board’s omission of Hills Elementary from the bond proposal? A look back at the process can shed some light on that.

At our October work session, our facilities director told the board:

If we’re going to finish Hills, let’s finish Hills, okay? I mean, it’s an unfinished building. The board made that conscious decision in 2013, in December of 2013, to just do the mandatory code updates, and that’s what we’ve done, but they’re in need of more classrooms, we just set two temporaries, or actually two, two duplexes, there’s four temporary classrooms there, their gym is totally inadequate, there are a lot of things that need to be done at Hills, so I put it on there for discussion. If we’re going to do it, it’s going to take three million to finish it and do it right.

So the materials presented for discussion that night showed a $3.2 million Hills project scheduled for completion in 2022. It included a new gym and four new classrooms.

At the same time, the facilities director presented a similar choice to the board about TREC (the former Roosevelt Elementary):

If we’re going to keep that building, which may be another decision for another day, this needs to be moved up [to 2020-21 in the timeline], so that at that point, we’re air-conditioned a hundred percent.

By January, though, the picture had changed, for both Hills and TREC. By the time the board settled on a bond proposal, it had decided to put neither facility into the seven-year bond-funded period. In the case of TREC, the explicit administration recommendation was to start looking for new homes for the programs there in anticipation of closing the building.

In both cases, the administration told us: If we’re going to do these, let’s do them. In response, the board took both facilities out of the bond-funded seven-year period and put them on the unfunded “future needs” list. Are Hills residents unreasonable to be concerned about the future of their school?

The future of Hills Elementary

One of the primary themes of the district’s bond proposal is “facilities equity”—the idea that your school facility shouldn’t be so different from those elsewhere in the district that it impacts your child’s educational experience. At the elementary level, this has included the idea that every school ought to have a separate gym and cafeteria, which not all currently do. Because of this emphasis on equity, by the time the bond-funded projects are completed, every elementary school in the district will have a separate gym and cafeteria.

Except one: Hills Elementary. Hills, which has one room that serves both purposes, and which will have eight temporary rooms this year, was conspicuously left out of the bond proposal. Instead, the board majority put Hills on a separate list of “future needs” that are not included in the bond proposal. That list includes an item for adding a gymnasium and art and music rooms to Hills at an estimated cost of $2.5 million.

Our administration has told us that there are only so many projects that the district can run at any given time; that’s why the facilities projects are spread out over years rather than all done simultaneously. So if a project is not included in the bond, which covers all the projects in the facilities plan through 2023-24, there is no reason to think that it can be added to the plan until after 2023-24, even if the funding materializes. And, of course, anything that is not included in the bond proposal could not happen without its own funding source (such as a possible second bond proposal in the future).

Actually, there are two elementary schools in the district that will not have a separate gymnasium and cafeteria by the time the bond-funded projects are completed: Hills Elementary and Hoover Elementary (which, of course, the district is planning to close and tear down). The “future needs” list, where the Hills project now appears, is also where the board put the renovations to TREC (the former Roosevelt Elementary), after the superintendent told us that he’d prefer to close the TREC building and thus hopes to be able to cancel those renovations altogether.

Hoover and Roosevelt are not the company that Hills wants to be in. The Hills community has good reason to worry about the district’s commitment to that school—especially since the district has floated multiple proposals to close Hills in recent years.

Continued here.

Mixed messages, part 11

(Part 10 is here.)

I think the district’s inconsistent statements about the effect of bond passage are at least partly responsible for the fact that members of the public seem to hold different understandings of the issue. For example, when I tweeted the article about the Minnesota school district that closed schools after telling voters it would renovate them, I quickly heard from one bond supporter who told me that “In Iowa the bond language is a legal document that cannot be altered after the fact by any admin or board,” and from another who told me that “It was clearly [our] board’s intent to have flexibility.”

Moreover, even if voters discount the district’s more enthusiastic statements (“A GO bond locks in the plan!”), they still do not have clear statements of the district’s position on several important questions, such as:

• After the bond passes, can the district completely drop a project from the list of projects in the ballot language?

• The governing statute says that if the voters pass the proposal, the district “shall issue” the bonds. Does that mean that if the bond passes, the district is legally required to issue bonds in the stated total amount ($191 million), even if it might have some freedom to reallocate the money among the listed projects?

• Does it mean that the district would have to issue the full amount of bonds, even if the legislature extends the SAVE sales tax before we need the money? (The current SAVE statute allows districts to pay off bonds with the sales tax revenue, but there could be significant transactions costs if we’re required to issue all the bonds first.)

Even if the district’s answer were “we don’t know, because the law is unclear,” that in itself would be informative. Readers: Maybe one of you will have more success in getting publicly shareable responses to those questions than I have. (I don’t feel free, as an individual board member, to share information that has come to the board in the form of advice from the district’s counsel.)

Finally: What is the cumulative effect of the district’s statements on this issue over the last nine months? Is the district being sufficiently candid? Is it being sufficiently careful about the public expectations that it’s generating? Do its statements, collectively, make you more confident that the district will treat the public respectfully as it moves forward after bond passage? Do they make you more willing to entrust the district with $191 million?

Mixed messages, part 10

(Part 9 is here.)

It may well be true that the broad, general ballot language gives the district great legal leeway to alter the planned projects after the bond passes. That may even be for the best (though it would be less necessary if the bond plan didn’t extend out so many years). But if that’s the district’s position, shouldn’t it be trying hard not to raise any expectations to the contrary?

But the district is not only including inconsistent messages about the issue in its bond information, it is widely disseminating detailed descriptions of the projects that are planned for each school (example here)—none of which say anything about being subject to change or about how little they are reflected in the ballot language. Here, for example, is how the descriptions are introduced:

On September 12, 2017, voters in the Iowa City Community School District will consider an estimated $192 million bond package. The bond will fund the second half of the approved 10-year Facilities Master Plan (FMP), which impacts every school in the District and every area of the community. Below you will find detailed information on the impact of the FMP on each building within our District. Each school’s project sheet also includes FMP project information on their associated feeder schools.

The descriptions explicitly link the projects to bond funding:

If people are enticed into voting for the bond by these detailed project descriptions, how easy will it be politically to change course later on, if the projects turn out to be unnecessary? Will it be enough to point out the disclaimers that appeared in some parts of the FAQ? By sacrificing candor now to generate support, isn’t the district needlessly laying the groundwork for future conflict?

A more frank presentation of the district’s stance, though, would invite a discussion about whether voters should trust the district to implement the plan in a way that makes sense and is based on real needs.

Continued in part 11.

Mixed messages, part 9

As I mentioned in the last post, the district’s current bond FAQ continues to send mixed messages about the effect of bond passage. In one place, it states:

Q: What if the bond passes and the board changes its mind on what projects need to be completed?

A: There is no clear answer to this question. As a general rule, ballot propositions should be drafted as precisely as possible; at the same time, the Iowa Courts recognize that their phrasing encompasses some measure of board discretion and leeway and that inaccuracies in drafting do not always involve material matters. The particular language of the ballot and facts and circumstances at the time will be important considerations for the board.

The bond referendum provides voter approval to the District to sell bonds for many projects in accordance with the Facilities Master Plan. Operationally, the District will sell the actual bonds as approved by the referendum to fund the projects in increments with various legal requirements. These incremental sales will list specific projects for which the funds from that sale must be used for only those projects specifically within a 24-month period.

The bond language makes it clear that the purpose of the bond is to fund the remaining projects on the Board-approved Facilities Master Plan. The 10-year Facilities Master Plan is based on projected population growth provided by professional demographers. The Board will continue to receive updated biennial population growth projections. If necessary, based on those projections, the Board can adjust the size and scope of particular projects.

Saying that the board can “adjust the size and scope” of projects is different from saying that it can cut a project entirely, which is what we were told in our work sessions. And elsewhere, the FAQ still contains these statements:

Q: What happens if the bond passes?

A: We continue to transform the learning environment delivering a 21st Century classroom for our students and our staff. Air conditioning, renovations, and capacity increases to accommodate student growth continue as planned by the FMP.

. . .

Q: Will more schools close if the bond is approved?

A: No. If the bond passes, the District can fully fund the Facilities Master Plan that allocates millions of dollars to renovate schools that are otherwise vulnerable to closure. With the exception of Hoover Elementary School, the Facilities Master Plan commits to keeping all schools open.

(Emphasis added.)

Although the specific wording in the district’s materials has changed over time, the pattern has repeated itself: Cautious legalistic disclaimers in one place, enthusiastic doubt-free assertions in another. What to make of it all?

Continued in part 10.

Mixed messages, part 8: School closures

In my last post, I wrote about the mixed messages the public received from the district about whether passage of the bond would “lock in” the plan. The district also sent—and continues to send—that kind of mixed message on the particular issue of school closures. In April, the district’s materials stated:

Q: Will more schools close if the bond is approved?

A: No. It is the total opposite. A GO bond locks in the plan! Investing millions of dollars in your school is a good reason to keep it open.

Yet, at the April meeting where the board approved the ballot language, the following exchange occurred:

Director Liebig: We also had a community commenter who said that passage of the bond would be “a guarantee of no more school closures.” Is it a guarantee of no more school closures?

Superintendent Murley: This is—from that standpoint, that’s a board action, so, no, it’s not a guarantee of anything in the future from a school closure standpoint.

The superintendent’s statement is plainly correct, regardless of the legal effect of the ballot language, since some schools (e.g., Hills Elementary) are not in the ballot language at all. Yet even today, the district’s bond FAQ contains the following:

Q: Will more schools close if the bond is approved?

A: No. If the bond passes, the District can fully fund the Facilities Master Plan that allocates millions of dollars to renovate schools that are otherwise vulnerable to closure. With the exception of Hoover Elementary School, the Facilities Master Plan commits to keeping all schools open. Hoover ES is the exception based on its location in proximity to City High School. The Facilities Master Planning Steering Committee determined that the additions needed at City HS required the acquisition of additional property.

The district thus states as a fact that no more schools will close if the bond passes—contradicting the superintendent’s own statement—and that the facilities plan “commits” to keeping all schools open. This is one more example of the district’s inability to give a consistent answer to questions about the effect of bond passage.

Continued in part 9.

Mixed messages, part 7

In my last post, I discussed how the district’s informational materials gave inconsistent answers to questions about the effect of bond passage. Those answers were not only internally inconsistent, they were also inconsistent with information our administration was providing elsewhere.

So, around the time that the district website was saying that “A GO bond locks in the plan!”, the superintendent was providing these answers (shown in bold below) to questions from a member of the public:

I had a couple of questions regarding the bond language being considered.

Suppose I wanted to be reassured that Shimek’s renovations will be completed as described in the FMP (neither more nor less). What language in the draft proposal would assure me that it will be completed as described in the FMP planning documents?

- The General Bond language is written in such a way that the projects described are linked to the Facilities Master Plan.

- Completion of the projects will require the Board seated at that time to issue the appropriate bond in the series (there are four projected)

Could the project be scrapped entirely if the bond passes and the funds planned for it according to the FMP be reallocated to other projects?

- The Shimek project could be modified if the Board seated at the time the bond is issued determines that the scope of project warrants changes to the Facilities Master Plan

Could the Shimek renovation be changed so that a 300-student addition could be added to the building that would be paid for with bond funds(I’m aware that's not practically feasible on that plot of land!)?

- If the Board seated at that time determines that the Facilities Master Plan should be modified to call for a 300 seat addition at Shimek they could modify the project

That sure doesn’t sound like a locked-in plan. Continued in part 8.

Mixed messages, part 6

As I mentioned in my last post, after the board settled on a bond proposal, the district began to generate “informational” materials about it. Those materials, though, were inconsistent on the issue of just how much bond passage would put legal constraints on the district.

One iteration of the material, for example, stated:

Q: What if the bond passes and the board changes its mind on what projects need to be completed?

A: There is no clear answer to this question. As a general rule, ballot propositions should be drafted as precisely as possible; at the same time, the Iowa Courts recognize that their phrasing encompasses some measure of board discretion and leeway and that inaccuracies in drafting do not always involve material matters. The particular language of the ballot and facts and circumstances at the time will be important considerations for the board.

Just a little further in the same document, though, this appeared:

Q: What happens if the bond passes?

A: We continue to transform the learning environment delivering a 21st Century classroom for our students and our staff. Air conditioning, renovations, and capacity increases to accommodate student growth continue as planned by the FMP.

(Emphasis added.) This response states as a fact that if the bond passes, the district will continue the projects as planned in the facilities master plan (FMP). A bit further:

Q: Will more schools close if the bond is approved?

A: No. It is the total opposite. A GO bond locks in the plan! Investing millions of dollars in your school is a good reason to keep it open.

Locks in the plan! In later versions of the materials, those answers changed, but the mixed messages persisted. Continued in part 7.