By TOM WASINGER

USD 489’s Vision Team met Tuesday, May 16, 2017, to try and come up with plans for school building improvements to propose to the school board for its next bond election. In the end, some members wanted more time so there is another meeting scheduled in June. Here are some random thoughts and tidbits from my perspective about the school board, its vision team and what has been developed so far.

Vision Team members are self-appointed, meaning anyone can show up and participate. On average, 85% of the members who attended voted for the last school bond and are mostly in favor of any bond, no matter the amount. Several members are teachers or employees of the school district. Two of us, who attended regularly, voted no in the last school bond election. Based on this skewed makeup and the speed with which the decisions are unfolding, this process does seem fundamentally flawed to me. It’s questionable whether the results to date are representative of the community as a whole.

Not surprisingly, the team’s plans so far reflect the disproportionate makeup. The wished-for bond amount is $89 million on the high end (the last bond issue was for $94 million). It would necessitate the approval by voters of a one-half cent (.5¢) Hays city wide sales tax for ten years plus a rise in property taxes. If the city commissioners don’t agree to put the sales tax question on the ballot, it could be put to a vote by petition. (This certainly puts the city commissioners in an interesting position.) The back-up plan is for $55 million bond to be financed by raising property taxes only.

Both plans call for the building of a new elementary school for about $20+ million and the closing of Lincoln Elementary and the repurposing of O’Loughlin Elementary. However, don’t ask the vision team or the school board where the new elementary school will be built, because they don’t have a definite site yet. But what every voter needs to understand is interest will have to be paid on that $20+ million once the bonds are sold.

In a bow toward equality, the vision team believes there should be parity among all elementary schools, which means that they want to “right size” existing classrooms at Wilson Elementary School and wherever else necessary to make sure that no child has to suffer needlessly in a smaller classroom. Of course, this will cost many millions more to address. The only question not answered as of yet is how “right sizing” all the elementary school classrooms will translate into improved educational performance.

At no time has there been a discussion of how these plans will improve the space needs of the special needs students or how and where the school district will establish the educational experience students at O’Loughlin Elementary currently receive.

There was some discussion of transitional, incidental or miscellaneous costs associated with the building projects which were above and beyond the construction costs. I don’t exactly recall the amount of dollars mentioned, but it seemed to be additional millions.

Why should people from surrounding counties and the visitors who come to Hays to shop, eat, or spend the night pay an extra sales tax to support our local school board’s construction projects? While they do derive a benefit from our roads and EMS, for example, for which the City of Hays and Ellis County are responsible, what benefit do they get from our schools? What good reason can we give them? What might be their reaction to such a tax and what impact might their reaction be to an already declining revenue source for the City of Hays?
At the last meeting two individuals questioned the rush to get this to a vote or if they were really ready to present this to the school board. There is absolutely no doubt that the plans could be developed at a slower pace and better refined and defined before moving forward. However, the school board through its architects and vision team has created a juggernaut which will be difficult to slow down.

After the last bond election, I wrote an article in which I explained the reasons why I thought the voters rejected the previous school bond. The general and primary reason cited was a lack of trust in the school board.

But some specifics involved:

• Using a local sales tax as a funding mechanism to pay for a portion of the bonds despite its impact on the City of Hays’ and Ellis County’s ability to deal with future revenue shortfalls. Given the current local economic recession and declining sales tax revenue the issue becomes even that much more acute for the City of Hays and Ellis County. One has to wonder how they will respond to this issue.

• Turning over $90 million to the school board in one humongous bond issue with the hope that they will be able to spend it all efficiently and prudently. The average taxpayer has heard this all before.

At the very least, it is reasonable to question the school board’s rush to put this to a vote. What is exactly gained by a vote this year vs. next year? The architects hired by the school board to guide the vision team regularly told us that there is no big hurry to put forward any plans, but given my experience in the past four months, I’m beginning to have my doubts.

It’s still possible the school board and vision team will prove skeptics like me wrong and maybe the Hays City Commissioners can justify the sales tax idea to the people of Hays, such that they will support the extra tax, notwithstanding the constraint it would impose on the city’s major source of operational funds. And perhaps the voters of USD 489 school district will gladly hand over $89 million (or $55 million) all at one time for improvements to facilities and a new elementary school despite all the unanswered questions, for example those related to where the new elementary school will be built, what happens to Lincoln Elementary, Washington School and the Rockwell Administration building, the special needs students, the O’Loughlin experience and whether right sizing all the elementary classrooms is a genuine need and is warranted.

But the questions each and every taxpayer and voter in the school district needs to ask every member of the school board and vision team are at least these: What is the rush? Why can’t the process be more measured and deliberate? So what if it takes another year to develop refined, solid plans? Why are there still important unanswered questions that aren’t being addressed? How can we trust you to spend our hard earned taxpayer money wisely under these circumstances?

Tom Wasinger, Hays