Funding our crumbling schools: when the levy breaks (with the bond)

Franklin High School (photo by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

A new pair of ballot measures in support of local schools, set for a vote by Portlanders on May 17, is turning out to be a confusing question even for those with every intention of giving local education everything it needs. But, as President Obama likes to say, it’s also a teachable moment about education funding and building.

Over the weekend two high school students knocked on my door with a flyer urging support for Measures 26-121 and 122 in the upcoming election. The flyer makes a dire case that, as its italics, upper-case and underlining suggest, “OUR SCHOOLS ARE IN TROUBLE." Not THEIR schools, in case you didn't get it. OUR schools.

“The bond measure raises $548 million for Portland’s 85 school buildings using a ‘pay as you go’ approach that will save over $200 million in interest payments by issuing these school bonds to spend over six years instead of the traditional 20 years,” it explains. “Independent construction engineers have prioritized the bond projects for urgency and cost-effectiveness. The cost of the bond is approximately $2 per $1,000 of assessed value. An Independent Oversight Committee, annual audits and monthly reports will ensure dollars are spent as promised.”

There’s no doubt plenty of architectural horror stories are available. As the flyer’s array of bullet points indicate, almost half of Portland schools depend on old oil furnaces that are inefficient, expensive and potentially hazardous to fire. Electrical systems are out of date and cannot support contemporary telecommunications equipment. Every one of Portland’s 85 school buildings needs more classrooms and upgrades to its HVAC systems. The supposedly temporary nature of the add-on trailer has become a permanent fixture beside most K-12 facilities in the district. Think about it: your kid likely studies in an unofficial mobile home park. And we wonder why the Chinese are kicking our educational butts? And of course in this rainy climate, numerous schools are leaking. At one elementary school in the PPS portfolio, ten 50-gallon barrels are required to collect water whenever it rains.

Grant High School (photo by Matthew Ginn, Homestead Images)

So why in the world would some of the very people who would seem to care most about improving the woeful state of Portland’s public elementary, middle and high schools be asking voters to reject half of the May 17 schools ballot?

The “Learn Now, Build Later” is asking voters to support the levy for schools but reject the bond.

The levy is essential, they say. If it fails, Portland will have to cut more than 300 teaching positions or 21 school days and educational programs.  And even if it passes, we will still lose roughly 115 teachers or 7 school days.  

At the same time, the “Learn Now, Build Later” campaign say adding the bond to the levy is too great a burden for local households. 

“We had go-go years for the last nine years and the economy was strong, and the school board did nothing,” says architect Stuart Emmons, a Lincoln High parent and one of the co-leaders of the pro-levy, anti-bond campaign. (In full disclosure, Stuart and I co-led the Memorial Coliseum preservation campaign.) “All of a sudden they wait for unemployment to go into doing this.”

If voters approve both the levy and bond, the owner of an average home worth $230,000 will see a $500/year annual increase – about $350 for the bond and $130 for the operating levy. Many homeowners face annual increases of $700-$1,000 or more.

“Learn Now, Build Later” also argues that while surrounding districts are consolidating smaller schools to conserve costs while offering a solid education, PPS has illogically and wastefully prioritized rebuilds of small schools over larger schools with worse facilities rankings. “It’s a really poorly thought out bond,” Emmons adds. “They’re not getting enough bang for their buck or distributing the money right.”

“I served on the PPS Board from 1995-2003.  For six of those years, I chaired the budget committee.  For seven, I chaired the facilities committee.  I am a dedicated progressive, and have voted for every PPS measure until now, but I cannot support the bond,” says Marc Abrams, another pro-levy, anti-bond campaigner.  “It targets the wrong buildings, at the wrong price.  In addition, I do not believe PPS has truly made the facilities reductions that were necessary and which I advocated over the years.  Had they done so, some of this would have been avoidable.”

Column outside the former Washington High School (photo by Brian Libby)

Emmons also argues that, while marketing for the levy and bond “yes” campaign has emphasized seismic stability as part of what the bond will address—a timely mention given the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami—in truth seismic upgrades would comprise a relatively small portion of the bond, somewhere in the range of 10 percent (not including the two schools planned to be rebuilt entirely). “I can see all these TV commercials with ceilings crashing over kids’ heads,” the architect says. “But there’s just not enough going to seismic in this bill.”

He also criticizes Portland Public Schools for a lack of long-term strategy. “I don’t think they’re ever going to get caught up,” Emmons says. “They need to think of how after five or six bond measures we’ll be completely there.”

Besides just waiting two years to write a better bond measure, Emmons argued in a recent Oregonian editorial for an alternate plan: rebuilding every high school in the city. “Imagine the number of students that would be impacted. Imagine the excitement in all corners of our city, as students from kindergarten through 8th grade will look forward to learning in a new 21st century high school,” he writes.

By no means does everyone among parents and progressives support the “Build Later” campaign.

“I feel like the two measures leverage each other,” said Katharine Sammons, a Chapmant K-8 School parent, in a January 24 Portland Tribune article by Jennifer Anderson. “I’ve been in a lot of these schools. Particularly with the earthquake (in Japan), it’s scary.” At West Sylvan, where her daughter will be in three years, Sammons explained, there’s dry rot on the windows, “it’s leaking all over the place,” and there are asbestos pipes within kids’ reach with large danger warnings on them.”

This issue will be the topic of an April 22 City Club Friday Forum called “The PPS Bond Measure: What would $548 million buy?” with Peyton Chapman, principal at Lincoln High School and Charlene Williams, principal of Roosevelt High School.

Perhaps there is some reason for skepticism about the “Learn Now, Build Later” campaign. Take the notion that the recession makes this the wrong time. A leader like Franklin Roosevelt might have countered that economic downturns are precisely the right time for a public works project because they bring jobs to builders, architects and many subcontractors.

What’s more, if we wait for Portland Public Schools to produce a smarter, better-targeted bond, it might be a case of Waiting For Godot. Why wait two years or more when this bond is already on the ballot? Even if the money isn’t allocated ideally, it’s at least, upon passage, being allocated. Clearly regardless of whether the bond targets the right schools in the right combination, pretty much all 85 schools in the PPS district need work.

There is also plenty of room for creativity and greater skepticism about how the bond system works. As Emmons pointed out, for all of the millions the bond is asking for, it doesn’t even provide enough funds for the work being sought. This is a common tactic with public bonds, asking for just a little less than they actually need.

What’s more, why must such bonds for parks and schools always be presented as an all-or-nothing decision? Why must we either spend $548 million in state property tax money via levy and bond or nothing? These initiatives should be done in cooperation with the philanthropic community, which can selectively help with donations and fundraising. We don’t just need to potentially wait two years for a better bond, but to re-think bonds, levies and the overall mechanism of K-12 school funding. It needn’t be a continuous case of famine, feast and famine again. There also needs to be more opportunity for individual schools to assess and fundraise for their own needs.

Honestly, I don’t yet know how I’m going to vote. PPS doesn’t seem to have done Portland many favors with the timing, content and presentation of the levy and bond. Yet it’s dangerous when one is standing in a barren desert, overcome with thirst, and passes up a savior of a bus stoppping because the next bus that comes is a better ride. Sometimes we may need to get on the bus and hope to influence the next one.

Comments

[Grrreat]

You do realize, Roosevelt was able to push the upper tax bracket as high as 94% and was able to build the debt to 120% of GDP?

In effect, we're being asked to foot the bill during a woefully poor economic period, so that we can support jobs? It is a self-defeating shell game that, instead of increasing capital in-flow, creates a zero-sum game: we get taxed, we spend less (after all, we're not talking about targeted upper-income earners who never spend more than they earn). We're not in effect, discussing a Roosevelt-like scenario, just to be clear.

And this is the first time I've heard of not having enough classrooms; last I read - straight from PPS' website - over the past 13 years PPS has had an enrollment drop of 10K students. Are they playing games there too? Are they intentionally cutting schools so that they can claim to not have enough class space?

What's going on here?

[Sut]

"As Emmons pointed out, for all of the millions the bond is asking for, it doesn’t even provide enough funds for the work being sought. This is a common tactic with public bonds, asking for just a little less than they actually need."
This is the opposite of what the bond was criticized for in an Oregonian article the other day, which said the estimated square foot costs were high. It seems like there's a lot of misinformation floating around about this bond. I'm not sure what's right, but I do know that the state our schools are in is shameful, and I don't plan to wait around for the perfect bond, or for the restructuring of financing mechanisms.

I'm also sceptical that anyone was being taxed at 94% in this country, and while the property tax structure that this bond is based on isn't as progressive as I might like, at least it puts the burden on those of us lucky enough to own homes, and especially on those lucky enough to own expensive homes. If we don't invest in education, we will all be poorer for it.

[randy]

Where is the average homeowner
going to come up with another
$700 or so a year to pay for this?

This bond will probably pass because of the
"liberal values" where we feel responsible, compelled and shamed to support this latest tax increase even when many feel financially squeezed and conflicted.

We are in real trouble now as a community.

This new add-on tax will have the effect
of further reducing home values.

With even more folks' mortgages under-water they will spend less in the community as they are compelled to sell or walk away from their mortgages...no kidding, there is a real connection here.

PPS and its special interest unions have a long history of stupidity and waste. The unions have taken advantage again and again.

I saw an official list of dozens of PPS teachers that make over $100k when you add up all benefit costs. I don't feel sorry for them. Their PERS pension payments when they retire will be far more than most of us will see in our paychecks while working!

The union's seniority contracts mean that the youngest most energetic and cheapest cost teachers will be let go first. We are being taken down in the schools not so different from Detroit.

Remember the PPS and union's last campaign compelling and educating us all into supporting Measures 66/67? They said that tax increase would solve everything.

[babcock]

I can't support this bond measure. First of all, I agree that Portland schools are in horrible shape. The lack of routine maintenance has caused them look like schools you might see in the third world.

However, my problem is with how the money is being spent. One of the biggest chunks of money is going for a rebuilt of Jefferson high school. This is a high school that is simply not needed. The parents have voted by sending their kids elsewhere. The kids have voted by being the first high school that I ever recall to not nominate a single student for the Rose Festival.

The school board can't make any hard decisions so instead they are using our money to cover up their indecisiveness.

Let's cut down the number of buildings that need to fixed up and modernize and then I'll vote for it.

[Grrreat]

SUT, people like you really annoy me. You bring an opinion of doubt - 94% upper tax bracket - when you have the simple tool of the internet or even the public library to search for verification.

Does your laziness befit your educational upbringing?

[Linder]

I have mixed feelings about the proposed Portland school bond measure. On one hand, I think Portland’s schools have been neglected over the last couple decades and I know it would be prudent to replace many windows and furnaces. On the other hand I want to be sure PPS is getting the most out of the schools they have, and they are not rebuilding elementary schools too large and too reliant on busing children. Having properly sized schools for each neighborhood is critical to Portland’s “20-minute neighborhood” vision and provide more children with the opportunity to walk or bike developing a healthy lifestyle early in life.
In past decades attendance in the Crestwood neighborhood was shifted from Smith Elementary School to Markham across the freeway. More recently Smith School in Ashcreek Neighborhood was closed to shift more catchment across the freeway to the large Markham school. If feel these decisions damaged PPS’s reputation and attendance far worse than school administrators are willing to admit, particularly with the admitted poor condition of Markham. This is the time to reevaluate the decisions that closed smaller efficient schools like Smith, Applegate, and Hollyrood, before we spend a half billion dollars on capital improvements which may not mesh with our transportation and livability goals.

[irmquirit]

This bond measure goes beyond a little bump into financial burden territory. I worry about the people who are retired, unemployed, under-employed and just hanging on.

Our cost of living is already high once you factor in Portland's low average income. It's easy for people who don't own a home to assume that anyone who does must have a lot of extra, but that's not always the case. There are people in my neighborhood who are clearly just hanging on and this is a terrible time to try to sell a home.

The schools absolutely need assistance, but I refuse to tell people who are just making it that they have to find an extra $500 or get out of their home.

[Tanya March]

Every single day children in Portland are going to schools that threaten their safety and undermine their education. I never read from my script door to door, you are correct that it reads "These measures will make critically needed safety repairs to our schools and save hundreds of teaching positions." I'd be happy to drop off a lawn sign personally for you if you select to support the bond in the end. I do think public schools belong to their neighborhoods and that the system we have of historic pre-war school that are a great match for the 20 minute neighborhood.