March 13, 2010 01:29 AM UTC

When BEST just isn't enough

•  
• by: Bowman for Senate

The good news – great news really – is that the Building Excellent Schools Today program works.

In 2008, when legislative leaders and state administrators put their heads together, the result was a terrific piece of legislation.

In a nutshell, the BEST initiative was designed to parlay School Trust Land, State Lottery, and other capital construction revenues – no tax dollars involved – into $500 million for health and safety improvements at Colorado’s public schools.

In 2009, the program disbursed $134 million for capital construction projects throughout Colorado. In the current school year, more than $ 259 million will be distributed statewide, and over $2 million of that will go to seven school districts in northeast Colorado.  

Those very worthy projects in Senate District 1 include $88,000 to move propane tanks which were dangerously close to school playgrounds in the Woodlin School District. In the Wiggins RE-50 district, there is $108,000 for a partial roof replacement at the elementary school.

There is also more than $180,000 for roof repairs in the Yuma 1 School District, and $874,000 for an innovative heating and ventilation system at Julesburg High School. The latter utilizes geothermal energy for a projected cost savings of somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 annually. The estimate is based on money being saved right now on the comparable system which was installed last year at Julesburg’s elementary school with $1 million BEST dollars.

This well conceived grant program requires a percentage of matching contributions from recipient districts, on a scale that generally ranges between 25% and 40%. Districts use a pay-as-you-go plan, wherein they can submit receipts for scaled reimbursement every 30 days. Turn-around time for repayment is reportedly an efficient two weeks.

Further, grant applicants are required to use a competitive bid process in determining vendors and service providers, and the grant authorization board follows stringent criteria to determine priority rankings for projects. Specifically, the money is for replacing or repairing health and safety issues in the state’s most dangerous and neediest schools.

And that’s the bad news.  

Bowman for Senate :: When BEST just isn’t enough

In SD1 alone, applications for more than $7.7 million were prioritized out of the running for BEST funds. These were not wish lists for cosmetic improvements such as new paint or carpet – that sort of request would not have even been considered. No, the review board had to turn down projects such as other roof repairs, electrical system upgrades, and communication systems because they were not as much of a health or safety hazard.  

That means a potential half a billion dollars still requires cherry-picking among functional construction needs in Colorado’s schools.

Woodlin Superintendent Rose Cronk said her district would “absolutely not” be able to afford address their problem without BEST money.

Wiggins Business Manager Carrie Allen said her district would have had to “get by as best we could with patching and repairs.” Julesburg RE-1 Superintendent Shawn Ehnes said his district would have opted for “a less efficient system” that would forego future savings.  

In short, the BEST program, wonderful as it is, is a stop-gap measure when you consider that Colorado’s per-pupil funding is about $1,400 below the national average. Figures from the National Center for Education Statistics indicate our per-pupil funding is $1,000 less than New Mexico’s, $1,700 below Kansas’, $2,500 below Nebraska’s, and a whopping $5,600 less than Wyoming’s.

And as I write this, administrators are struggling to craft their respective budgets for the next school year with the specter of budget cuts ranging from 6% to 10% hanging over their heads. (That’s in addition to last year’s cuts of 3%.) Imagine trying to balance your own budget with that sort of an unknown. Allen said her district has drafted three potential budgets – allowing for cuts of 6%, 8%, and 10%.

In Yuma, there is consideration of everything from wage freezes to staff cuts and four-day school weeks geared toward saving on transportation costs.

I was raised to believe in Colorado’s public schools. I trusted them with the education of all my children, and I have enough faith in our school system that I look forward to seeing my grandchildren earn their high school diplomas in Colorado public school classrooms. Our schools deserve a significant legislative effort that addresses what Cronk calls “the ratcheting effect” of our current education financing structure.

Options such as alternative formulas being used in other states to calculate per-pupil funding should be considered. It may be that we need a statewide ballot issue which balances the constraints of the TABOR Amendment with inflationary realities confronting our schools.  

And none of that can happen without a serious commitment from legislators to consider educational needs of their overall constituency – isolated special-interest initiatives make political statements, go no where, and waste precious legislative time.

Bottom line: Grant programs, even the BEST ones, are no substitute for a realistic and progressive fiscal system.