University of Maryland College Park Office of Executive Programs
Newswire Week 5(10/26-11/1)
LOCAL
Plan could save $30M on schools The Capital (Annapolis, MD) - October 31, 2002 Thursday http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/live/10_31-49/TOP
	School officials could save up to $30 million over the next five years if they follow a series of cost-cutting measures, according to a report released yesterday by a panel studying school construction spending. In a four-page summary presented to County Executive Janet S. Owens, her commission on school construction estimated that the savings could help pay for two or three additional schools each year, reducing a troublesome construction backlog. The recommendations call for the Board of Education to: - Assign a school system employee to ensure that each building project has an economical design. - Create a committee of construction pros to help assess reasonable costs during the design and development phases. Choose architects who already have a proven track record in low-cost techniques. - Change board policy to allow a purchasing agent to approve contracts instead of the full board, speeding up the bidding process. - Lobby the General Assembly to give the county financial incentives for building cost-saving schools.
ACROSS THE NATION
Tennessee
No denying county need for school expansion – ‘overdue,’ says Wharton, but ‘How do we pay for it?’ The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) - October 26, 2002 Saturday
	Although several county commissioners see merit in a $48 million plan to build a high school in Arlington and expand Houston High, they have no idea how the projects will be funded. The Shelby County Board of Education will ask the commission to pay for the projects, saying both are crucial to easing the crowding in county schools. The Arlington school is expected to cost $45 million while an expansion to accommodate 500 students at Houston is estimated at $3 million. The Houston expansion would allow the controversial transfer of students from crowded Germantown High. The Arlington school would alleviate crowding by drawing its 2,000 students from the northern section of the Houston High zone, the eastern section of Cordova High's zone and the southern section of Bolton High's zone. However, using the state-mandated average daily attendance (ADA) formula, the county would have to borrow an "astronomical" $173 million, according to county schools director of communications Mike Tebbe. The state formula requires that the county raise nearly four times the actual cost of a school project, with more than 72 percent going to the city school system.
Tennessee
Needed : A new way to pay for new schools The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) - October 30, 2002 Wednesday _ Editorial
	The work is not easy, and it's done without pay. But the architects of a new funding proposal for public school construction in Memphis and Shelby County need to return to the task, quickly. They will need cooperation and ideas from the city and county school boards, the City Council, the County Commission, the local legislative delegation and anyone else in this community with an interest in public education. The urgency soon will become clear, when the Shelby County Board of Education asks county commissioners for construction funding of as much as $48 million. To fulfill that request under current conditions, the commission also would have to allocate about three times that amount to the Memphis City Schools. By state law, school construction funds are distributed according to a formula based on the average daily pupil attendance of the city and county districts. Since Memphis has nearly three times as many students as Shelby County, it gets three times the money. Concern over the law and its effect on Shelby County's rapidly rising public debt led Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton to create a task force on school funding. The task force developed a new funding proposal, but has had difficulty getting all affected parties to sign on. Now the county school board plans to build a $45 million high school in northeast Shelby County. It also is likely to seek $3 million for an addition to Houston High that would be filled by students who now live in the southernmost part of the Germantown High School attendance area. County Schools Supt. Bobby Webb says both facilities are desperately needed. According to projections, the number of high school students in the county system could hit 16,000 - about 3,000 over the system's current capacity - in five years.
Illinois
Edwardsville group says school district gets enough tax revenue : but officials say cuts will be necessary if referendum fails St. Louis Post-Dispatch - October 30, 2002 Wednesday http://home.post-dispatch.com/channel/pdweb.nsf/42ebeea693b5c24585256a0d00791dde/86256a0e0068fe5086256c62005347d1?OpenDocument
	The Edwardsville School District gets enough tax revenue and should use its reserve funds if necessary to staff a new middle school, say members of a group opposing a tax-increase referendum on the ballot Tuesday. Members of the loose-knit residents' group, called Enough Taxes Already, said Tuesday that their taxes are high enough and that the district should spend the revenue it already receives more wisely.
California
View split on bonds; Many back prop.47, but can we afford it? The Daily News of Los Angeles – October 28, 2002 Monday http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200%257E20949%257E953170,00.html
	Local school districts are lauding Proposition 47, a school construction bond on the Nov. 5 ballot that would provide nearly $250 million for school construction and repair in the Santa Clarita Valley, but opponents say the state doesn't have the money. Santa Clarita Valley school and city officials are rallying for the $13 billion state bond that would fund approved construction and renovation backlog projects for critically overcrowded schools.
Massachusetts
State aid cuts may jeopardize school project The Boston Globe – October 31, 2002, Thursday
	A potential cut in state aid to school construction casts a shadow over a proposed renovation of Berlin and Boylston's secondary school two days before the first vote on the plan. The regional School Committee held an emergency meeting Monday night following news that state officials are considering paying a smaller share of local school building project costs. But committee members decided against withdrawing the $16.5 million renovation of the Tahanto Regional Middle-High School from consideration at Saturday's Special Town Meeting in Boylston - the first hurdle the project must clear. "It looks like it's going to be on the town's shoulders," said Judy Booman, cochairwoman of the Berlin Finance Committee, who along with other financial officials argued against going ahead with the plans at this time. The state Department of Education has filed legislation to cut the base number used in calculating reimbursement by 10 percent. If state lawmakers support the change, the projected reimbursement for Berlin and Boylston would drop from about 62 percent to about 52 percent, said John Kidder, chairman of the building committee.
New York
An Overhaul In Building Of Schools The New York Times – November 1, 2002, Friday http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/01/education/01BUIL.html
	Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced yesterday that he would overhaul the byzantine system of building schools in New York City by merging the two agencies responsible for construction, cutting 600 jobs in the process. Mr. Bloomberg said that the Department of Education's school facilities division would be immediately combined with the School Construction Authority, an independent agency. The idea is to have a single entity in charge of both the planning and execution of school construction instead of what the mayor called a "two-headed monster" with "divided responsibility and divided accountability." The two agencies cannot officially merge without state legislative approval, but Mr. Bloomberg, who won control of the School Construction Authority last spring when he took over the school system, said their duties could be combined at once. Legislative leaders indicated that they would agree to the change.

Articles compiled by Sujin Bae

Graduate assistant for the School Construction Funding Project

Van Munching Hall University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-1821

poissone@wam.umd.edu