Op/ed: Citizens for a Great School opposes construction of new high school in Leet

Citizens for a Great School is a nonpartisan and nonprofit community organization. It came into being as a result of the Quaker Valley School Board’s decision to build a new high school without seeking voter approval.

Our large group supports a significant investment in either the existing building or a new building. We have carefully considered all information and as a result find we are concerned about issues of fiscal responsibility, transparency in the process, problems of the site chosen, failure to fully explore the potential of remaining on the current site, long term impacts of the contemplated expenditure on the quality of education, property tax consequences and the failure to consult taxpayers about spending more than $100 million.

Recently, another community group, QV Strong, penned an op/ed regarding the board’s decision to build a new high school. This op/ed is in response to theirs.

QVS stated that the school board cannot conduct a referendum. This is not accurate or reasonable. The Board’s goal shouldn’t ever have been how to get away with not having a referendum. It should rather be if we intend to spend more than $100 million on a project, let’s make certain a majority of the community is in favor of it. The only way to do this is to have a vote on the issue. Legal counsel has advised us that a referendum can be conducted without regard to ACT 1 thresholds.

The school board’s financing plan is designed specifically to avoid a referendum. It involves increasing taxes each year to the ACT 1 limit and using that money to pay down the debt the project will incur. The result is that construction cannot happen for many years. Other important things to consider include if you use all tax increases to pay down debt, what is left for programs, curricula and teachers? To illustrate, in 19 of the last 20 years, QV has increased taxes at or above the ACT 1 limit. If those increases were necessary to provide and sustain the quality of education to date, what happens when we have to use future increases to service debt?

Additionally, the financing plan may not provide the revenue needed to complete the project. The other op/ed acknowledges this possibility. In other words, the school district may be $50 million into the project and then be legally required to conduct a referendum to get the funds to complete it. This is not fair or right. The school board should respect the taxpayers of our community and give us the right to approve or disapprove this construction project before proceeding.

QVS believes it makes sense to spend more than $100 million to “enhance our ability to recruit top teachers.” We believe their priority is misplaced. Teachers want to teach where they are well paid, programs and curriculum are updated, where good tools for learning are in place, and professional development is a real option. If our tax dollars are tied up servicing debt, we won’t be able to offer these kinds of incentives and we, therefore, won’t be able to recruit or keep top talent.

A third claim that the “renovation option is behind us” is only as true as the school board’s unwillingness to re-open the issue. Their documents indicate that a rigorous analysis of what could be done at the existing high school site was not performed. Further, the engineering firm arrived at a price estimate based upon inaccurate information regarding student population size.

Contrary to QVS’s statement, the existence of the floodplain doesn’t make expansion impossible – it only requires a permit to proceed. With regard to displaced students and the time period involved, no real exploration of how to do this has been considered. Finally, using the existing site would be less costly and greener. It is more central and the football stadium is already built. CGS is a proponent of re-opening this question for a more complete analysis.

QVS claims they are “committed to ensuring traffic, environmental, water drainage, geological and technical concerns are addressed throughout the process.” Really? Clear-cutting 50 wooded acres? Spending millions to blast, cut, fill and “stabilize” a site similar to the Walmart site? Possibly impacting homes below? Setting up new roads and traffic in a residential neighborhood that will have access issues in bad weather?

The question is not only can it be done safely, but also how much will it cost to accomplish? Is it right or reasonable to spend $30 million or more before any actual building can commence?

QVS’ argument that our millage is low is purely sleight of hand. Property values are high in this district, which allows for lower average millage. Millage rate on homes is the secondary issue. Taxes are impacted by school district expenditures. QV operating costs are the highest in Western Pennsylvania. QV spends $27,000 per student when the top 10 school districts average cost per student is around $20,000. Why? In part because at present, we spend 13% of our entire budget servicing debt. The school board wants to increase that debt by more than $100 million.

While the board and its representatives have been saying repeatedly this project will cost between $85 and $95 million, the truth is that the project will cost, by their estimates, more than $122 million – $10 million for the land, $85-$95 million for the site work and building, and $17 million for a stadium, field house, practice fields and administrative offices. And the likelihood that this is an underestimate is great, both because of site conditions and because of the protracted nature of their financing plan.

The school board has risked $10 million on a problematic site that is not zoned for a school. They are required to seek a zoning exception from Leet in order to proceed. They risk being disallowed.

CGS did employ counsel. We had to do so to obtain documents that the district was unwilling to release. We’ve used donations by community members who hope to make information public and thereby secure a referendum.

CGS welcomes anyone to visit our website www.c4ags.org to view our position and the documents relied upon in more detail. We ask you if you share our concerns to sign our petition, contact your school board members, and donate to help defray our costs.