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Funding new schools will test board's political will

Anyone who has contemplated building a home in Citrus County recently, and who has gone into the process with a dollar figure in mind for construction costs, has had a rude reality check. Take that figure and double it, and you are starting to come close to today's price tag.

And the numbers just keep on climbing as the demand for construction materials around the world soars. Factor in the impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and consider that large areas of Florida are still picking up the pieces from last year's hurricanes, and it is easy to see why the cost of building anything is going out of sight.

The School Board got its own dose of sticker shock recently when it learned that the price of a proposed 810-student elementary school will be more than double what the district expected to spend.

The numbers are sobering. The board was already having a tough time swallowing the $11-million estimate for the new elementary school that will serve the exploding population in the Citrus Springs area. Today, that looks like a bargain.

District officials have said the school will top $25-million to build. With the opening projected for 2008, the costs will no doubt rise even higher.

The district has no choice but to proceed with a new school, faced with the twin pressures of a growing population and the dictates of the state's class-size amendment. Officials here can take some comfort in knowing that they are hardly alone; counties throughout the state are facing the same challenges.

The School Board, however, must press its staff for a better and more detailed explanation for why the new school here will cost so much compared to those being built elsewhere. In Pasco County, for example, the School Board this week approved spending $13.9-million to build a 754-student elementary school.

Why will a similar-sized school in Citrus County cost an additional $11-million? What are we planning to build that will cost so much more, and do we need it all?

There are a few steps that district officials may be able to take to cut costs, but they do so at a certain risk. After all, this is the district that infamously allowed the Homosassa Elementary School additions to be built without supporting materials in its walls, a potentially disastrous oversight that continues to reverberate through district construction operations.

While not trying to build on the cheap, officials also must be wary of over-spending as well. Our schools should not be bare-bones warehouses for children, but they also need not be extravagant. During a recent presentation to the School Board, the staff insisted that they are working to find this balance.

Local officials have traveled to other counties to look over new schools, seeking ways to save on costs. One obvious savings would be to use an existing design rather than hire an architect to reinvent the wheel. There are other possible savings and the board must insist that each legitimate one is fully explored.

Even with any such savings, the School Board will be faced with the same tough question that vexes those wishing to build a new home: Where will we find the money?

Citrus County school officials over the years had been able to hold to a "pay-as-you-go" philosophy of school construction. Those days are long gone.

Just as Citrus County commissioners are choking on the escalating costs of building roads, and with finding the money to do so, the School Board will be facing politically unpopular choices.

The commissioners approved raising the gasoline tax 6 cents a gallon starting in January to raise money for the needed road projects, and they have been roundly criticized by residents who are already being hammered by out-of-control prices at the pumps.

That vote took courage then and will test their political backbones when the tax kicks in in 2006, which just happens to be an election year.

The School Board members will face their own tough financing decisions, which will involve possible tax increases or borrowing millions of dollars through bonds.

The board must keep the pressure on the county commissioners to raise the school component of the county's impact fees to their highest allowable levels so as not to fall further behind the funding curve. They must also continue pleading their case before our legislative delegation to secure whatever money may trickle out of Tallahassee.

In the meantime, they must also look closely inside their own operation. The rising property values in Citrus County have generated unprecedented tax revenues for the district, and the board must be careful stewards of those dollars.

Any money that the complex school budgeting processes allows to be set aside for construction projects must be sent that way and not allowed to be absorbed into the black hole of district operations.

It will not be easy and sacrifices will be needed, but the board has no choice but to build. Just as the new homeowner needs a place to live, children need places to learn.

[Last modified October 9, 2005, 01:08:18]