Tavares, FL - Dec. 15, 2011
Guest Commentary: Jim Krakowski is a member of the South Lake County 912/Tea Party and he attends many meetings of the Lake County School District Board in Tavares. He has significant business experience, and below is his report of the Dec. 12 meeting, with comments from three Board members.
You can usually find the meeting agenda and attachments supporting the agenda items at the School District website HERE. Go to the "Board Docs" menu and select the "public" option, then find the meeting date to open the agenda.
VJ
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My comments / observation regarding December 12, 2011 School Board Meeting.
(Jim Krakowski 12/14/11)
Long Range Planning
Monday’s board meeting was filled with recommendations, options, wish lists, etc. The Director of Growth Planning presented the findings from the Northeast Lake Long Range Planning Committee along with the committee’s recommendations. They focused on which older schools needed to be repaired, modernized and/or expanded for potential future growth. These older schools had suffered from lack of funding due to the need to build new schools in faster growing areas of the county (specifically south lake). As part of the committees recommendations “… Eustis Elementary and Umatilla Middle be expanded slightly upon reconstruction, to the extent that Eustis Elementary would have a capacity of around 750 students, and Umatilla Middle would be able to house 1000 students.”
Now that the board has recommendations from South Lake and Northeast Lake planning committees, the next step in the process is to appoint a similar committee for Northwest Lake. Once done all of the recommendations will be compiled, priorities established, funding or the lack thereof discussed and a plan developed to address these short-term and long-term needs.
What’s missing?
- Demographics … just a few short months ago the board was presented with a 3 – 5 year projection on student population and tax revenues. Lest we forget, the student population was expected to be flat (no growth), and the tax revenues were expected to continue to decline. I don’t think that anything has changed to alter these demographics. As a matter of fact one of the funding sources has been eliminated by the county commissioners … Impact Fees. It was a little disappointing that demographics was not part of the discussion, especially since this was an element Ms Fischer asked the staff to address when discussing the Grassy Lake addition a few months ago. But then again, most of the schools mentioned by this committee are in Ms. Fischer’s district.
- Revenues … With the decrease in tax revenues (both local and state) and an increase in state and federal mandates (e.g. Race to the Top), new funding resources need to be addressed as part of the Long Range Plan.
It would appear that both demographics and new funding sources should also be a part of the long rang planning process.
Attendance Boundaries
The Director of Growth Planning then presented the Advisory Boundary Committee’s recommendations regarding South Lake elementary schools … especially Grassy Lake. The recommendations were to construct the addition that was voted down by the board less than 12 months ago (some things never die). The second option was to revise the attendance boundaries and have Minneola Charter as an option for families that do not wish to send their children to Astatula Elementary.
Debbie Stivender (the then chairperson) and Rosanne Brandeburg (the current chairperson) both indicated they had previously recommended the $2.1 million addition to Grassy Lake even though there were and still are less expensive options. But since the addition was voted down, and since the district will be spending several hundreds of thousands of dollars on specialized portables, the second option would most likely be the only viable alternative. A new twist would be that existing students at Grassy Lake and siblings would be grandfathered in to stay at Grassy Lake if they so choose.
Tod Howard stated that, if what he had recommended several months ago to revise the school boundaries, were done, the board would have resolved this problem. In my opinion Mr. Howard was and still is correct. Instead of solving the problem long-term, several on the board took a short-term, easier approach vs. addressing long-term solutions. In effect they “kicked the issue down the road” … now it needs to be addressed. Keep in mind that Grassy Lake, Astatula and Minneola Charter are all A rated schools.
Transportation Routing System
The district is currently transporting over 22,000 students per day for a daily mileage of over 24,000 miles. The current routing is being done by hand and the recommendation is to spend ~$150,000 for a new software program that would enhance and allow the routing to be compiled more efficiently. The estimated annual cost to maintain the system would be ~$25,000. It is estimated that the saving would be multiple of the costs. The funds are already available, and no new requests for additional funding would be required.
What’s missing?
- Although I agree that a routing system as large as this school district should be more efficient, and I am sure the software has the potential of improving efficiencies, but where is the cost analysis? I am not a believer in estimated savings starting with words like “should” save or it is “expected” or “anticipated” to save … There needs to be an analysis that specifically identifies what assumptions were made to arrive at the estimated cost savings.
- Hats off to the managers who “squirrels away” funds in the accounts under their control for projects such as these. It does make me wonder, what other accounts are over funded?
- Although separate from the routing system, is the board addressing how they are going to replace the busses used to transport 22,000 students per day or is the district going to be forced to borrow / spend funds on an “emergency” bases … similar to the forced borrowing for South Lake HS lights and HVAC units?
Finally … I am sure the board members and superintendent are also believers in long-range planning. However, what they should not forget or discard is the information previously compiled (e.g. demographics) when making decisions. I am also a believer in Cost Analysis and not relying on “estimated” costs savings that are not based on valid, identifiable data and assumptions.
Comments from the Board:
- Tod Howard – “Demographics will be brought in once we actually have all the facility data. The demographics will change between now and then. I was thinking about the GLE situation. I understand the community advocating for their schools but LCSB has spent $100,000,000 in the past 5 years on their community. How much is enough? When do the schools with much greater needs become a priority?”
- Jim Miller – “You make good observations and ask very good questions. Many of them I am also asking. We think a lot alike.”
- Rosanne Bradenburg - I wanted to share with you that the original estimate to build the 10 classroom addition for Grassy Lake and Sawgrass Bay Elementary was $2.1 million however the cost to build the addition to Sawgrass Bay Elementary ended up at $1.4 million which is the same cost that it would have been at Grassy Lake. The $2.1 million estimate was also down from $4 million each that it would have cost if they had been added prior to my joining the board. The cost to put in the five portables at Grassy Lake was $530,000.
My response –
Thank you Rosanne
Conclusion:
I guess it is a good thing that GLE wasn't approved when the cost was over $4 million. If I had fully understood that the cost of the portables was going to be $530,000, I would have pushed harder for the other option ... boundary changes (Minneola Charter and Austalutla) ... the option 2 presented by the committee and the one that appears to have the support of the majority of the board members.
Submitted by Jim Krakowski (his REAL name)
Jim Krakowski
james krakowski [[email protected]]
