University of Maryland College Park Office of Executive Programs
Newswire Week9 (11/25-12/01)
LOCAL
Chesapeake struggles over new schools The Virginian-Pilot - November 27, 2002 Wednesday http://www.pilotonline.com/news/nw1127joi.html
	What do you need, right now, to start on the high school you say you desperately need? That was what Vice Mayor Johh M. de Triquet wanted to know from the School Board on Tuesday in a rare face-to-face workshop with the City Council on school construction issues. The two elected bodies agreed that times were tough, that needs were high and to meet again after the governor announces his proposed state budget cuts on Dec. 20. Little was said about the city's ability to pay for school construction, for which it has offered no money since 1998. The board pleaded for funding for an already delayed new high school in the Grassfield area between Deep Creek and Great Bridge, to ease crowding at other high schools. Board member Harry A. Murphy calculated that to get started on the $53.1 million high school, the board needed about $2.1 million in city money for design and other preliminary work. Murphy estimated that by 2007 -- the earliest the new school could open -- the city would have 3,183 more high school students than spaces for them, half again what's needed to fill a new school. School officials are working on contingency plans that include shifting some ninth and sixth grades to less-crowded lower schools.
ACROSS THE NATION
New Jersey
N.J. Considers Hiring Firm for School-Construction Swap Plan The Bond Buyer - November 26, 2002, Tuesday http://www.bondbuyer.com
	Betting on rising interest rates, New Jersey is considering hiring a politically connected Pennsylvania financial adviser to craft a $3 billion forward swap plan for the state's $8.6 billion school construction bond program. Late last week, Investment Management Advisory Group Inc. made a presentation to a special board meeting of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority and state treasury officials on the pros and cons of a forward swap of the school construction debt. The IMAG presentation was not made in response to a request for proposal. Sources said the state is seriously considering using swap rates for the next $3 billion in sales and using IMAG as the swap adviser, a role that it is well known for in the municipal market. While the company has developed its swap-advising business, it has also been politically active. According to state campaign finance records, it has given $104,500 to state and local Democrats since 1997 and it donated $30,000 to the Democratic National Committee in October 2001.
California
Projections spotlight loophole The Press-Enterprise - November 27, 2002, Wednesday http://www.pe.com
	State officials say Beaumont Unified School District's enrollment projections have spotlighted a major legal loophole that California lawmakers need to plug. If the district inflated enrollment forecasts to receive millions of dollars in school construction funding, as former Superintendent John Wood has alleged, such action "highlights an integrity problem" in Sacramento's school-facilities construction program, officials say. David Zian, fiscal services manager for the state Office of Public School Construction, said that even if the district did not deliberately overstate future enrollment, it still may forfeit previously approved construction money if a continuing inquiry determines there were material inaccuracies on its funding application. Beaumont has received about $ 37 million of $ 139 million in approved construction funding since 1999. The district is in line to receive the balance out of Prop. 47 funds -- the $ 13-billion school-construction bond measure approved Nov. 5 by state voters. Zian said the State Allocation Board is expected to distribute the $ 6 billion within 60 days. In the meantime, if the state finds that Beaumont's five-year growth projections were unrealistic, Zian said, that could constitute a material inaccuracy. Under current law, material inaccuracies are grounds for the state rescinding or withholding funds, he said. "We may have to make adjustments to Beaumont's allocations based on our findings. Of course, any approved projects that are clean will receive funding," he said. Zian said Beaumont's case has brought to the forefront a problem that school-construction officials envisioned long before it materialized recently.
Ohio
Judge stands corrected, too late The Plain Dealer - November, 27 2002 Wednesday _ Editorial http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1038393222204420.xml
	Reasonable people knew that a Franklin County judge's ruling last May on the state's school construction program was hyperbolic, political and just plain wrong. But in the highly charged atmosphere of the campaign season, Democratic Judge Jennifer L. Brunner's judicial rantings prompted a reflexive defensiveness, contributed to the resignation of the school facilities chief and otherwise created chaos for one of Gov. Bob Taft's few well-run agencies. Now, months after the public furor has quieted, a state appellate court has defined the degree of Brunner's errors, underscoring the injustice dealt the agency and its former leader, Randy Fischer. The three-judge panel found unanimously that Brunner misread the law a whopping 14 times; six other possible problems have been rendered moot by subsequent events. If only Brunner could face the same kinds of consequences for her misjudgments that she essentially forced on others five months ago.

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