Can anybody spare $60 million?
Redlands educators are almost certain to ask voters to approve $60 million in new school bonds to finance the completion of Citrus Valley High School. The expected price tag for the Redlands Unified School District's third high school has nearly doubled from the $73 million projected back in 2002 to $113 million now. The likely bond issue is up for discussion at Tuesday's school board meeting.
School board president Ron McPeck told me Monday that the board's not likely to decide whether to put on the ballot at Tuesday's meeting, which he said he be a chance for the general public to weigh in on the issue. The consultant that the district hired to gauge whether a bond could survive at the polls reported last month that a $60-million bond measure has a slim chance of passing.
School officials have consistently said that construction costs soared out of control in past years, a point that McPeck repeated when I talked to him Monday.
"We don't have any choice with the costs of materials almost doubling," he said. "The public doesn't want a half-finished high school."
School board minutes from last year show that in 2002, the cost to build one square foot of school was around $200. By the end of last year, that figure had jumped to $375-400.
While materials prices were rising, the district and homeowner Ellen Disparte faced off in an eminent domain battle that lasted more than one year and ended with the octogenarian Disparte agreeing to sell her property for more than $3 million provided that she could live at her farm for the rest of her life. School officials began grading work for the Pioneer Avenue campus while the case was still in play.
I asked McPeck is the case had an affect on the rising costs. He replied that the case didn't hold the project back for long enough for $60 million worth of costs to ramp up but said the dispute can be blamed for some of the problem.
"It would have made some difference. It delayed it a year," he said.
The likely bet right now is the voters living inside Redlands Unified's boundaries will be asked to approve a bond in February. Expect bond proponents to argue that the money is necessary "for the children," or maybe "for the teenagers," since this one is about a high school. If the bond passes, property owners' tax bills would rise by about $28 per $100,000 of assessed value.
If the bond gets on the ballot, Redlands voters will wind up having to vote on taxes in two straight elections. In November, voters will look at Measure F, which creates a tax on distribution centers. It's a tax that doesn't affect directly affect many people that will probably sail to passage.
But a school bond will be tougher to pass.
The district's consultants reported that 55.3 percent of survey respondents favored the measure after being told what the money would be used to pay for - facilities like a gymnasium, swimming pool and music classrooms. State law requires a minimum vote of 55 percent for a school bond to pass and the survey's margin of error was +/- 4.5 percent, so putting this on the ballot could be a gamble.
Taxes have been an issue in Redlands for much of the year, proposed hikes to sales and bed taxes have already been rejected. Those proposals polled poorly, so it would be my expectation that this February is the last time Redlanders are asked to give more money to the government for quite some time. A rejection would show city officials that Redlanders aren't willing to give the taxman more money, but even if voters wind up favoring a school bond, at some point they're going to get tired of being asked to say "yes" to taxes.