District Plan Better Than Any Alternative: Letter

The following letter was written and submitted by Bennett Lasko.

In a community conversation that too often degenerates into name-calling and conspiracy theories, it was refreshing to read Adam Kornblatt’s serious and thoughtful alternative proposal published in Highland Park Patch on February 5.

I was a member of SCFFAC and have continued to work with the District on these reconfiguration issues since SCFFAC issued its report in early 2014. Like everyone else involved, I had no inkling when we started that we would end up proposing a single middle school campus. But it is the best solution anyone has found and I support the March 15 referendum.

Mr. Kornblatt’s alternative is essentially the same model that a group of SCFFAC members, administration representatives and the District’s architects reviewed in a series of meetings in November and December 2014. I was one of the SCFFAC members in that group.

These discussions occurred shortly after an early version of the current middle school campus proposal had taken shape, while it was undergoing engineering, environmental and other reviews.

Our purpose was to answer the question of “What can we do for half as much money?”

Several SCFFAC members, myself included, felt we could not reasonably recommend a plan costing nearly $200 million without knowing the answer to this question. At least a few board members had asked roughly the same question.

Like Mr. Kornblatt, we concluded that the most reasonable or feasible “half-way” approach would be to close Elm Place School and one elementary school, most likely Lincoln School, accompanied by minimal expansion of Edgewood and Northwood as necessary to accommodate the students displaced from Elm Place, and minimal expansion of two or three elementary schools, most likely Ravinia and Indian Trail, to accommodate the students displaced from Lincoln.

Our cost conclusions also were similar to Mr. Kornblatt’s. Although we had only preliminary cost data, it was clear the District could not complete this alternative restructuring for half of the cost of the middle school campus plan. I can’t speak for the group as a whole, but the cost target in my mind was $80 to $90 million. Even on a preliminary basis, we knew that it would cost materially more than $100 million. Mr. Kornblatt estimates $125 million, which seems about right.

We concluded that we could not recommend this approach as a financially reasonable alternative to the middle-school campus proposal. The primary reason was that without replacing a substantial portion of the District’s oldest buildings with new construction, it would be imprudent to borrow the needed funds over a 30-year period.

The $125 million in this alternative plan would fund only a 15 to 20 year cycle of maintenance and repairs of the current buildings. (The Green Report recommended 15 years; we assumed we could stretch it to 20 years.) At the end of 20 years, the buildings would be twenty years older and require another - and almost certainly more costly - round of repairs.

Prudent finance requires that the District repay the funds it borrows for a 20-year round of repairs over the same 20 year period. Otherwise, the District would be saddling the next generation with a new round of maintenance needs while still paying old debt for the last round.

(Put another way, it is financially irresponsible to fund capital improvements by borrowing money over a longer time period than the expected life of the improvements.)

The justification for the General Assembly allowing the District to issue 30 year bonds for the current reconfiguration proposal is that the current proposal would leave the District with nearly 50% newly constructed buildings having a useful life expectancy of 50 to 60 years. Thus, the average life of the improvements under the current plan would exceed the 30 year amortization of the bonds.

The annual cost to a homeowner of borrowing $125 million over 20 years is roughly the same as the cost of borrowing $198 million over 30 years. If Mr. Kornblatt’s alternative plan were funded over an appropriate period of 20 years, then, our taxpayers would pay approximately the same amount of increased taxes but receive much less in return.

In addition, as Mr. Kornblatt recognizes, his alternative would produce only about $2 million in annual operational savings, as compared to the $4 to $5 million savings expected from the current plan. Mr. Kornblatt recommends bridging this gap with a permanent $2 million increase in the District’s operating levy (which would require a separate and additional ballot referendum). The combination of the two - $125 million in capital bonds and a $2 million increase in the operating levy – would cost taxpayers more every year, and more on a permanent basis, than the current proposal.

Finally, the current proposal offers the opportunity to replace our most outdated buildings, which are increasingly ill-suited to the needs of modern education, with new buildings that can be designed specifically for current needs and priorities. In concrete terms, that means things like flexible class rooms, collaboration spaces, STEM labs, and updated athletic facilities, among many other things. Mr. Kornblatt’s alternative would offer few, if any, of these enhancements.

Mr. Kornblatt’s alternative reflects an impressive amount of hard work and careful thought. All of us should commend him for his efforts. For the reasons explained above, however, his alternative offers substantially less benefits for somewhat greater costs. In many ways, it would again kick this can down the road and saddle the next generation with the same set of problems to solve twenty years from now, with an even older and more outdated set of buildings.

We are hard-wired to be anxious in the face of change. The middle school campus proposal includes a lot of change, as well as some very real pain points, like the loss of some neighborhood schools. Unfortunately, there is not going to be a painless solution to the District’s very deep and serious challenges.

The current proposal is the result of a long process over six years and hundreds of meetings. It was developed with top-quality professionals and reviewed by the leading school construction firm in the US. It is recommended unanimously by the seven elected members of the school board, who have examined variations and alternatives at virtually every meeting for nearly two years. It is endorsed by the teachers’ union and the League of Women Voters.

It is a good plan. No one has found a better one. Let’s pass it. Vote YES on March 15.