Talking it out with Jack Hickey

A few weeks ago I fulfilled a dream: a chance to sit down, face to face, with a person I had a public, online disagreement.  Amazingly enough it was with the perennially dyspeptic, big-government hating, perpetual candidate Jack Hickey.

I don't dislike Jack.  In fact I admire his sense of civic duty, his attention to detail, and his persistence.  There are certain issues I can even find agreement with him (that's another story).  But I decided a few months ago to take him on publicly regarding the on the June 5 ballot because in the case of the (RCSD) finances, his arguments do not hold water.  Not this time at least.

So as I have with everyone who has disagreed with me on The Patch, and elsewhere, I offered to sit down with Jack and have coffee to hash out our differences.  He responded in the affirmative almost immediately.  Our meeting was civil, respectful, open... and without resolution.  In the end, we had questions for each other and promised to gather the information for sharing in the course of the campaign, but my intent was always to share our conversation publicly relating to the parcel tax.

That starts today with some information regarding facility use that Jack likes to believe could solve much of the district's financial problems. 

Good news and bad news, Jack.  The good news is that the district already does lease out excess facilities in short-term leases to half a dozen non-profit organizations, some of them educational in nature.  They are required by law to make those facilities available to any organization that applies for them.  They are also required to lease those facilities at competitive rates. 

The bad news is those excess facilities are not in great demand for the simple reason that few organizations want a short-term lease.  The short term allows the district to reclaim facilities if enrollment jumps, which it does often, according to Raul Parungo, chief business official at the district. That makes it difficult for the leasing organizations to make long-term plans.

Now Jack will say they need to move to long-term leases then.  Good news. The district is not against that idea. Bad news.  The execution is a bit more difficult. 

According to the state education code, before a school can execute a long-term lease with a private organization, they must do a search for another public agency that might need the facility.  That process can take up to a year to complete.  Then they can put the facility up for bid to private groups, which can take another year.  That requires a private group to be willing to wait up to two years before a deal can be made.

The district had actually completed negotiations to lease a portion of one district school.  The private school was being evicted from their previous facility because the other district they were leasing from needed the facility back.  But a few days before our district could close the deal, the other district offered the school a different facility and the .

So the district is already doing what Jack suggests, and it is getting revenue from the deals, but there is not enough demand for the vacant facilities (which actually represents 2-3 rooms in about half the schools) to bring in the additional revenue that the parcel tax could bring in.

Jack has an answer for that, as well.  He thinks the district should consolidate all the students around the district into the empty classrooms and shut down one or two schools to save money.  In my next post I will deal with why that is also a pipe dream.

I hope, however, that Jack takes some comfort in knowing that the district does agree with some of his ideas.  It's just that they neither solve the funding problem, nor are they as simple as some people like to believe.