News items come from the U.S. Department of Educations's National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF).

$2b later, Kansas City, Mo., may close half its schools
-- Heather Hollingsworth , boston.com

Missouri: March 8, 2010 -- Kansas City was viewed as a national example of bold thinking when it tried to integrate its schools by making them better than the suburban districts where many children were moving. The result was one school with an Olympic-size swimming pool and another with recording studios. Now it’s on the brink of bankruptcy and considering another bold move: closing nearly half its schools to stay afloat. Officials say the cuts are necessary to keep the district from plowing through what little is left of the $2 billion it received as part of a groundbreaking desegregation case. Buffeted for years by declining enrollment, political squabbling, and a revolving door of leadership, the district’s fortunes are so bleak that Superintendent John Covington has said diplomas given to many graduates “aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.’’ Kansas City is among the most striking examples of the challenges of saving urban school districts. The city spent freely to improve facilities, but boosting lagging test scores and stemming the exodus of students were more elusive. The latest possible solution for Kansas City is the plan Covington submitted to the school board last week that called for closing 29 out of 61 schools to eliminate a projected $50 million budget shortfall. Covington also has said he wants to cut about 700 of the district’s 3,000 jobs, including 285 teachers. The school board vote is Wednesday. The proposal has stunned the community. “It’s crazy,’’ said Donnell Fletcher, the father of two girls, ages 4 and 12. “I just hope that with all the changes that they are planning on making, that the kids are the ones who are the most important and that hopefully they will get the resources and the education they need to be successful.’’ When Fletcher, 33, was a teenager, he transferred from a private school in the city to attend a showpiece of the desegregation plan, a high school with a high-profile fencing program. He, like many, wonders where the money has gone. This year alone officials expect to overspend the $316 million budget by $15 million and if nothing changes, the district will be in the red by 2011. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Kansas City appeared headed for a recovery when a federal judge in 1985 declared the district was unconstitutionally segregated. To boost test scores, integrate the schools, and repair decrepit classrooms, the state was ordered to spend about $2 billion to address the problems.

Gooding School District bond in the hands of voters
-- Staff Writer, KMTV

Idaho: March 8, 2010 -- Gooding voters will head to the polls tomorrow to decide on a $5 Million bond. The money would come from the Idaho 2009 Qualified School Construction Bond; it is being backed by stimulus money. According to the school district, the bond would be an essentially no interest or low interest loan. The main reason for the money is needed facility upgrades and repairs; they range from the heating system, piping to carpeting. Plus the school district says it grew almost 5 percent this year. Polling places are at the high school, middle school and the Number Two Shoshone Fire Station North of Gooding.

School board OKs up to $21.6M for Phase II of project
-- Laurel L. Scott, Standard-Times Go San Angelo

Texas: March 8, 2010 -- The San Angelo school board approved a guaranteed maximum price of $21.6 million for the second phase of the Central High School portion of the bond project, which will include construction of a new administration building, an agriculture shop and a building maintenance shop. Steve Van Hoozer, the San Angelo Independent School District’s director of bond planning and construction, presented the price from the contractor at risk, Lee Lewis Construction, at the Monday night school board meeting. The project was put out to bid in February.

School wins state bonus
-- NANCY H. GONTER, The Republican

Massachusetts: March 7, 2010 -- The city has learned that the state will reimburse it at a higher rate because it has done a good job of maintaining its current schools. Mayor Michael A. Tautznik said he received an e-mail from the Massachusetts School Building Authority saying it will reimburse 62.84 percent of the cost what the state determines to be eligible costs for the estimated $44.9 million project. That is 1 percent higher than previously expected. What remains to be determined is what School Building Authority officials will allow as reimbursable costs. Currently, school building officials say just short of $1 million of the project is not reimbursable while the state is saying $2.5 million is not reimbursable, Tautznik said.

School construction project puts street drags on hold
-- James Chilton, Daily Miner

Arizona: March 7, 2010 -- The seventh annual Kingman Street Drags event has been cancelled for this year due to logistical problems stemming from the construction of Lee Williams High School downtown. In an online message, Route 66 Winds and Wheels President Brian Devincenzi announced earlier this week that his organization would be unable to continue the event this year due to the construction. For the past several years, the Street Drags were on Beale Street in the downtown business district, drawing huge crowds but also requiring large amounts of public parking. Typically, the grounds of the White Cliffs Middle School campus at 400 Granview Ave. served as a staging ground for racers, as well as a place for spectators to park and take to the bleachers to watch the action. Now, however, the entire campus is cordoned off as contractors prepare to build a new high school in place of the demolished middle school.

New York Announces $40 Million Recovery Act Funding to Improve Energy Efficiency
-- Staff Writer, Energy News

New York: March 5, 2010 -- New York Governor David A. Paterson announced a $40 million investment to improve the energy efficiency of the state’s schools, universities and colleges, hospitals and not-for-profit agencies. The 118 projects, funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), aim to reduce energy and operating costs by $13.5 million a year and provide a full return on investment within seven years. The announcement marks the second round of funding in the State Energy Program, taking the total investment to $74 million. The programme backs projects to install energy efficient lighting, improved heating and cooling systems, high efficiency biomass boilers and renewable energy technologies like photovoltaics, solar thermal and small wind turbines. Alternative fuelling stations and vehicles are also supported by the programme. “These funds will provide public and non-profit entities with critical resources needed to make long-term investments that will reduce their energy costs and save taxpayers money,” said Governor Paterson

House Bill Offers School Construction Bonds Boost
-- Peter Schroeder and Audrey Dutton, Bond Buyer

National: March 5, 2010 -- The House approved a revised jobs bill that would allow issuers selling four types of tax-credit bonds to receive a direct Build America Bond-style subsidy payment from the federal government at a far higher rate than was proposed in the Senate version of the bill. The modified bill is “terrific,” said Michael Decker, managing director and co-head of the muni division of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. “It means that those products will actually be able to be used, because right now they’re not nearly being used to the extent that Congress intended.” Under the legislation, qualified school construction bonds, qualified zone academy bonds, new clean renewable energy bonds, and qualified energy conservation bonds could be issued as direct-pay bonds similar to BABs. The payment rate for the bonds would closely approximate their current tax-credit rate. Currently QSCBs and QZABs provide investors with tax credits of roughly 100% of interest costs. CREBs and QECBs offer credits roughly equal to 70% of interest costs. Under the programs, the Treasury Department determines a daily tax-credit rate based on taxable bonds with ratings ranging from single-A to triple-B from various market sectors. For QSCBs and QZABs, the jobs bill would require the Treasury to give issuers direct payments equal to the lesser of the actual interest rate of the bonds or the daily credit rate for municipal tax-credit bonds. For CREBs and QECBs, the Treasury would have to give issuers payments roughly equal to 70% of interest costs. Both of those rates exceed the ones that were in the Senate bill, which came under fire from muni market participants for providing no incentive for issuers to issue tax-credit bonds as BABs. Under the Senate bill, large issuers would have received a subsidy rate of 45% of interest costs and small issuers would have received a 65% rate. The bill defined small issuers as those that sell less than $30 million of bonds in the calendar year. Market participants had said issuers would not opt to issue the bonds as BABs if it meant practically halving the amount of the subsidy they could receive, and threw their support behind the House’s version of the bill with the far richer subsidy.

Board mulls bond levy Monday night
-- Nancy Townsley, The Forest Grove News-Times

Oregon: March 4, 2010 -- A preliminary proposal to place a multi-million-dollar capital construction bond levy on the November ballot will go to the Forest Grove School Board Monday night. District officials met with seven community groups during February to gauge the level of support for a possible levy to pay for a number of projects, including classroom space at the high school and reconstruction of Joseph Gale Elementary School. While there’s no final figure yet — a facilities group was due to decide on the money Tuesday night after the News-Times’ went to press — the district has been busy pushing the levy train down the tracks. Superintendent Yvonne Curtis and communications director Connie Potter have made pitches to Forest Grove and Cornelius city leaders, parents, business leaders, union members, teachers, faith community leaders and volunteer coordinators over the last two weeks, asking them if they’d get behind a bond. So far, they’re getting a bright green light.

Build New or Renovate. What To Do With Akron's King Elementary School?
-- Becky Tompkins, West Side Leader

Ohio: March 4, 2010 -- To build new or to renovate? That was the main question that brought more than 100 people out on a snowy night to King Elementary School. It was the initial community planning meeting in a process that will eventually produce a renovated or a brand new King Community Learning Center. In attendance were Akron Public Schools District (APS) officials, school board members and former members, Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) and city of Akron representatives, architects and interested community members. King is next in the APS’ 12-year program to replace or renovate all of its school buildings, with the help of the 59 percent of the funding that is being provided by the state through the OSFC. The remainder of the money is coming from a voter-approved quarter-percent city income tax. The APS’ executive director of facility services and capital improvements, Paul Flesher, said 17 buildings have been completed, four more will be complete by the end of the summer, four are under construction and four are in the design phase. The completed buildings are called community learning centers (CLCs), not schools. When a woman at the King meeting expressed her desire to keep the name King School, APS Superintendent David James explained that since the city of Akron is providing tax money to help build them, the buildings are operated jointly and the Ohio Revised Code requires they be called CLCs.

Debate continues to stir as school districts start new construction
-- Mary Niederberger, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania: March 4, 2010 -- During a state-mandated public hearing last week on plans for a $113.3 million renovation and construction project at Mt. Lebanon High School, the group of about three dozen speakers appeared to be evenly divided among those for and against the project. The biggest concern among the opponents of the Mt. Lebanon project is the 14 percent hike in school property taxes -- from 24.11 to 27.52 mills -- that has been proposed to meet the project costs and other district obligations, including teacher pensions. The Mt. Lebanon debate may be echoed in other communities as the project is among the approximately $453 million in proposed major school construction projects in the region. In addition, at least $286 million in major school construction projects are currently under way, including new high schools in Bethel Park and Moon Area, renovated middle schools in Upper St. Clair and new elementary schools in the North Hills School District. Taxpayers, like those in Mt. Lebanon, get their chance to voice opinions on the projects as the state requires, under Act 34, known as the "Taj Mahal" act, that all districts hold a public hearing on any major construction projects. Topics at the hearing include an explanation of why the project is necessary; a review of options; project description and expected maximum cost, financing plans and tax implications. While most school construction projects involve some level of tax hike to finance them, there is good news for residents in districts preparing to go out to bid and some who have recently accepted bids. Because of the slow economy and dearth of other major construction projects in the region, more contractors are scrambling to bid on school projects, with the competition bringing prices down.

Go to Top