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.

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.

Mixed messages, part 5: Blank check?

As I wrote in the previous post, the district began developing “informational” materials about the bond proposal, including a bond presentation that it would show to the public. The presentation gave no indication that the board might be able to change the plan after bond passage. Under the heading of “Frequently Asked Questions,” it stated:

This unhelpful statement was consistent with the district’s theme of “keep it simple” because “the details get complicated.” It wasn’t long, though, before the statement was deleted from the presentation. In its place, a new answer appeared:

Q: Is the GO Bond a blank check?

A: The bond referendum provides voter approval to the District to sell bonds for many projects in accordance with the FMP. 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.

That sure sounds different from “No.” Does it answer the question at all?  In any event, this item, too, later disappeared from the FAQ.  The district’s website no longer discusses whether the bond is a “blank check.”

Continued in part 6.

Mixed messages, part 4

As I wrote previously, it appeared from our work sessions that the district’s position was: if the voters approved a bond proposal, the district could choose not to pursue projects that were listed in the ballot language, as long as it didn’t use bond money for projects that were outside the ballot language.

But, as we drafted the ballot language itself, questions arose about how much flexibility the language itself might permit. For example, the ballot language the board ultimately adopted simply referred to “Lincoln renovations,” without any specific dollar amount or description, so people wondered whether that left the district free to scale those renovations up or down after bond passage. And could the project be dropped entirely?

At the same time, some people (including me) were raising questions about whether some of the projects might turn out to be unnecessary, especially capacity expansions that were five or six or seven years out on the timeline.

These two sets of questions created a dilemma for bond proponents. If the law permitted the district to revise or drop projects after bond passage, some voters might not feel confident that they’d get what they wanted from the plan. But if the law required the district to follow through on every project, some voters would worry about committing to projects that might be unnecessary.

This ambivalence crept into the district’s own “informational” materials about the bond proposal. Would voters be told what the board was told—that projects could be cut from the plan after bond passage?  Continued in part 5.

Mixed messages, part 3

As I wrote in part 2, I came away from our October work session with the impression that the district could choose to drop projects from the bond proposal even after the voters approved it. That message was reinforced in January, as the board discussed the future of TREC (the former Roosevelt Elementary School). The administration raised the possibility that we would include renovations to TREC in the bond proposal, but while putting them far enough out on the timeline that we might be able to choose to dispose of the property altogether, rather than do the projects. From the discussion:

Director Roesler: If we put this project in the bond language and then don’t do it, is that not a problem?

Superintendent Murley: Yeah, not doing it is not a problem. So, like I say, we put it in there because we would hate to get the point and not be able to do the renovations on it, but ideally we would get to that point and not need to.

(Full recording here.)

So again, it sounded like we could drop projects altogether, regardless of whether it was foreseeable at the outset that we might not want to do the project. The superintendent reiterated that idea later in the same meeting.

(Ultimately the board decided not to include the TREC renovations in the bond proposal; they now appear in the list of “future needs” with no current funding source.)

Continued in part 4.

Mixed messages, part 2

In my previous post, I described some information the board received in its work session last October about the legal effect of bond passage. The written information sounded somewhat different from the spoken information, so later in that same meeting, I asked a follow-up question:

Director Liebig: Just to go back to that one question. I still just want to make sure I’m explaining it right to people. What I’m hearing is, once the vote is done, people have voted for this thing, you can’t take any of that money and spend it on anything that wasn’t listed in the proposal at the beginning.

Chief financial officer Hansel: Correct.

Liebig: You could drop projects, just never bond for them.

Hansel: You don’t sell the bonds for them. Correct. You can drop projects if you don’t sell the bond.

A bit later, another exchange:

Liebig: I was also concerned about things that are just way out on the timeline, and we’re planning for them now, and [inaudible] commit to that, if five years from now we find out hey, you don’t need it.

Superintendent Murley: Well, you heard Craig say before, the University shuts down—okay, that’s probably unforeseeable, but if it does and suddenly all of a sudden the changes occur, yeah, we don’t have to move forward with that. So, from that standpoint, those projects are laid out; you can do those, you don’t have to do those.

(Full recording here.) Those answers sounded different from the written statement we received the same night that “ALL of the projects included on the ballot MUST be completed.” Now it sounded like the district was free to drop projects, as long as it did so before issuing the actual bonds (which can be years after the bond vote), though it might depend on a showing of unforeseeable circumstances. I left the meeting with the impression that that was the district’s position on the legal question.

Continued in part 3.

Mixed messages about the legal effect of bond passage, part 1

Before I discuss the bond proposal in more detail, I want to discuss a threshold question: If the voters pass the bond proposal, to what extent is the district legally constrained in its use of the bond money?

That’s a question raised by the Minnesota news story I cited in this post. As I wrote there, it may be better to ask: can voters have enough of a comfort level with the possibilities that they don’t have to worry about legal remedies? But how the district responds to the legal question now can affect people’s confidence about how it will act in the future. In this series of posts, I’ll review how the district has addressed the legal question over the last year.

In October, the administration provided the board with the following statement:

What if an event or events happen that require the District change plans over the five-year period? Can the District choose not to complete a project that was listed as part of the voter referendum? Remember, ALL of the projects included on the ballot MUST be completed. It is not appropriate for the District to not complete certain projects. If the District does not complete all the projects, the failure to do so may subject the District and the Bonds to voter challenge. The projects as described in the ballot and to the voters MUST be done. The District can’t decide Project XYZ is no longer feasible after four years and simply not do it. Also, if there is excess capacity and the District wants to use it to build an auditorium, but that wasn’t a project included on the ballot, then G.O. Bonds may not be issued nor can G.O. Bond proceeds be used for that project.

(The all caps appear in the original; emphasis in bold added here.)

That’s a pretty strong statement about the legal effect of bond passage. As we discussed the issue in that work session, though, a somewhat different message came through. The board’s chief financial officer said:

Can you change plans once it’s approved? No, you can’t. You have to do what you tell the voters you’re going to do. Pure and simple, you’ve got to carry it through. Now, if you issue the bonds, that is. If you don’t issue the bonds, then you can do the projects using sales tax dollars and not run amok of the law in what you said you were going to do in the referendum. So, even though they gave you approval to do these projects, if you don’t issue the bonds for them and you choose to do them through sales tax, that’s okay. But once you issue the bonds, you better carry through with what you told the voters you were going to do. That’s how you have to look at this.

(Emphasis added; full recording here.)

Voter passage of the bond proposal is different from the actual issuance of the bonds, which occurs later (in some instances, years later) and in several stages. To issue the actual bonds, the district has to be very specific about the planned use of the money, and its legal obligations at that point are much clearer and more constraining. But the chief financial officer’s statement left some uncertainty about how constrained the district would be after voter approval but before it issues the bonds.

This basic question would arise several times as the board discussed the bond proposal. Continued in part 2.