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A Times Editorial
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 11, 2000
Pasco School Superintendent John Long calls it overkill. State Rep. Mike Fasano characterized it as "typical of what we shouldn't be doing in Tallahassee." We don't disagree.
The critical assessments pertain to new rules requiring school districts to comply with state building codes, the result of which means expensive upgrades to portable classrooms. The timing is inopportune, coming as the Pasco school district tries to stretch construction dollars to meet never-ending demands from growth.
As Times staff writer Kent Fischer reported Saturday, the new law, administered by the Department of Community Affairs, means changes to nearly 400 red shacklike buildings in Pasco with no money budgeted for the alterations. The effort may mean a delay in remodeling a pair of aging middle schools, Gulf in New Port Richey and Pasco in Dade City, if district officials use those planned construction dollars on the state mandate.
Though improving school safety is laudable, this approach is misguided. It effectively turns movable classrooms into permanent structures and removes the flexibility of shifting the classrooms to meet demands at schools elsewhere in the county.
Among the required changes: fire detectors connected to the alarm system in the main school building, larger entrances, mandatory wheelchair ramps, roofs attached to existing hurricane tie downs and soil tests for classroom sites. District officials aren't sure of the cost, but suspect it could run into millions of dollars. Just adding wheelchair ramps to the 270 classrooms without them could cost as much as $800,000,
The expense is magnified because of the volume of portable classrooms in Pasco County. Long said the district has 368, or the equivalent of nine schools attending classes in the portable buildings.
It should be noted that portable classrooms are not intended to withstand tornado strikes, and children would not be in the buildings during hurricanes.
"I don't find any fault with making portables safe," Long said, "but this goes way overboard."
The mandate might be easier to digest if districts didn't have to eat the costs. That's where the Legislature should act. Tuesday, Fasano promised to work with the Department of Community Affairs and the governor's office to try to relax the March 31 deadline for the changes. Secondly, the Legislature should ante up dollars in the next legislative session to pay the expense.
Fasano concurred: "If we're going to cost local authorities more money we better make certain dollars are available to accommodate them."
The help is welcome, but so too would be a more far-sighted legislative and rule-making process in Tallahassee.