School CIP Tabled—

Consensus On NHS Project Eludes Finance Bd

By John Voket

A review and action on the school district’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) were derailed Monday when the finance board failed to reach a consensus on funding one aspect, the town’s largest single proposed expenditure. A motion to recommend a $38.8 million request for the construction phase of the high school renovation project was tendered by vice chairman James Gaston, but failed after a 3-3 tie.

A subsequent vote to approve $37.8 million also failed in a tie, which led to the ultimate decision to table consideration of that project and the remaining district CIP proposals. Finance board chairman John Kortze then directed fellow members to review and formulate motions based on the broad range of information and discussion that occurred during the nearly four-hour meeting.

He then suggested the board reconvene for its scheduled meeting January 24 ready to act on the district’s prioritized list of capital proposals, which also includes improvements to Newtown Middle School, and projects at Hawley, Middle Gate and Sandy Hook elementary schools.

The full school CIP has been a point of issue for finance board members for some time, as it became evident it would require more than $76 million in bonding over the next five years to accommodate just the school district’s projects. But the finance board has come closer than ever before to agreeing on and endorsing the top priority high school expansion.

Mr Kortze told The Newtown Bee that in recent weeks, it has become more apparent that his board has been backed up against a timeline to meet design and state deadlines, which would keep both the construction phase and the process of achieving maximum state reimbursement on track.

The meeting began with district and school board officials conducting a presentation of the project, attempting to justify the need to maximize space in the new addition, and reaffirming the merits of improving athletic facilities, including a full renovation of the gymnasium, turfing the football arena, and improving the school’s track.

Mr Gaston was particularly adamant about keeping the athletic component of the plan fully funded after fellow member Martin Gersten suggested the finance board might cut the project costs to accommodate only academic and programming improvements in the plan.

“If you cut that, the project will fail,” Mr Gaston said repeatedly, referring to a contingent of supporters who he said would demand the athletic facility improvements as a condition of supporting the full expenditure in a referendum.

School officials, including Superintendent Janet Robinson and school board chair Elaine McClure, reminded the finance board that athletic facility improvements were not exclusively for sport teams, but would enhance the physical education curriculum as well. Mr Gaston added that numerous community groups and recreation programs are depending on planned improvements that would in turn, reduce wear on already overtaxed park and school facilities elsewhere in the community.

During the presentation, officials also discussed pending state mandates that would require certain curriculum and programming expansions that justify the current plan to build out to the proposed parameters, which would ultimately receive maximum state reimbursement to a cap of 2,200 students. The finance board was told that space needs at the high school is the final aspect of a series of recommendations by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), which currently has the high school’s accreditation on warning status.

Dr Robinson repeatedly stated that in her assessment, the district’s ability to maximize the scope of renovations while achieving maximum allowable state reimbursement could only go forward under the current proposal, and that any delays to the project would force taxpayers to eventually pay more and get less than the current design.

She also said if the project died because the district missed state deadlines in the preconstruction phase, the town would have to rebid architect services and would lose the $2.2 million already spent on those services for the current plan.

While the question of how much to fund hovered within a million dollars of the proposed request by the district, another mitigating factor for other finance board members, including Michael Portnoy and Joseph Kearney, involve two sets of declining district population figures recently tendered by independent school district consultants.

“We’re at 5,700 students today, but both consultants said we could be at 5,000 in ten years,” Mr Portnoy said. He then suggested that if the projections were even nearly accurate, the district could accommodate all students within the existing facilities as they exist today.

The superintendent countered that state mandates for full-day kindergarten and universal preschool, as well as transportation issues, would be barriers to Mr Portnoy’s subsequent suggestions about possibly moving eighth and ninth graders into the middle school, and making elementary schools K–5.

Mr Portnoy said many of the mandates discussed would not go into effect until 2011.

“I’m not convinced that we should build at the high school when we have other facilities in town,” Mr Portnoy said.

Mr Kearney, who was the only finance board member to vote against funding the $2.2 million design phase, said he made that decision because he was afraid the district would not come back with final plans accommodating scalable options to flex the project downward if population projections justified it.

This conversation became the undoing of plans to move the full school CIP, because it opened the door on discussions about the projected scope of future town budgets, and their impact on the town’s self-imposed ten percent debt cap on borrowing.

During the meeting, town finance director Benjamin Spragg introduced a revised chart showing that the town would bump against that cap, or exceed it slightly, if the all current CIP projects were funded in the timelines proposed and the town’s budget growth remained consistent at six percent. An alternate chart showed several years in excess of the cap if the budget growth was estimated at four percent.

While Mr Spragg advised that despite the current year budget coming in at around four percent after three failed budget referendums, he thought factoring six percent budget growth going forward was prudent. But Mr Portnoy said the board should at least fully consider adjusting that figure downward considering the local impact of the current revaluation and numerous factors like energy costs and other financial concerns.

After much discussion on that point, he conceded to reconsidering his position after reviewing the debt cap ramifications if the budget growth stalled at 5.25 percent in the next few years. Several other finance board members, including Mr Gersten and MrKortze, were also troubled because the district and school board admitted to having no backup plan if the time line and deadlines were not met.

Ultimately, Mr Portnoy said he would vote against the high school expenditure until he could see exact costs for all the projects in the district’s CIP. Finance board member Harrison Waterbury suggested to finalize the district’s CIP at the January 24 meeting.