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Long Range School Use Study
(LRSUS)
The VISION is for the
District’s facilities to provide a quality learning environment that is a safe
environment for all users and represents an effective and efficient use of the
District’s resources.
In 2003-04 School District 11 conducted a
comprehensive study to address the current and future effective and efficient
use of its schools and facilities. This effort included: looking at and
documenting the condition of the existing physical plant (schools and other
facilities); projecting the capital needs of the instructional program in order
to best support the District’s academic achievement goals; and studying the
utilization of the District’s schools. The study became the Long Range School
Use Study or LRSUS.
Strategic Plan Goals
Alignment:
This initiative supports the District’s Strategic Plan Goals as follows:
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Goal #1;
Student Achievement – The school facilities are known to be a major factor
affecting the learning environment; the optimum use of the District’s school
facilities should facilitate efforts of improving student achievement.
§
Goal #2;
Safety – The way school facilities are used can impact safety of students and
staff by limiting overcrowding and fostering a more friendly environment.
§
Goal #4;
Community – The process will involve considerable communications and interaction
with the community and stakeholder.
§
Goal #5;
Effective and Efficient – The process will require an extensive look and
evaluation of the effective and efficient use of the District’s assets and
resources.
The study used a 50-person citizen-led task
force with representation from a broad spectrum of the community including
citizen volunteers, district school personnel, staff, and subject matter
experts. The LRSUS Task Force met regularly over a nine month period,
expending some 2,000 hours of effort, and produced two main deliverables:
the
Long-Range School Use Master Plan and the 2004-2009 Capital Investment
and Funding Plan.
Long-Range School Use
Master Plan
The purpose of the Master Plan is to assist the Board of Education and
District 11 staff with the identification of the District’s long-range school
physical plant needs and to communicate those needs to the public. As a
long-range planning document that looks as far into the future as possible, it
is not intended to address short-term or transient issues. The
recommendations of this plan are designed to be supportable, equitable and to
serve the best interests of the District as a whole. The Master Plan was
presented to the Board of Education on March 31, 2004.
Summary
of Findings:
1.
The District needs to address school utilization issues in the elementary
and high school areas. These include both over- and under-utilization of
school capacity in different regions of the District.
2.
The District needs a wide variety of improvements to its schools in order
to meet both current and future instructional program needs. These
improvements range from some district-wide issues to single site issues and
include major areas like adequate space, flexible use, air-conditioning,
technology, improving the general condition of the learning environment.
3.
The District needs to continue its focus on the school being the center
of learning in the community. Additionally, the schools need to continue
to support a wide range of neighborhood needs including school-community
partnerships and other forms of community use.
4.
The District has a serious backlog of capital renewal needs that must be
addressed, and it needs to have a plan to better manage future capital renewal
needs with recurring funding.
Summary
of the Master Plan Recommendations:
1.
Develop a multi-year plan to decrease the annual funding shortfall for
the recurring capital renewal needs of our school buildings.
2.
Construct a new northeast elementary school.
4.
Restrict the planned use of non-permanent facilities to meet long-term
school space needs.
5.
Add capacity at Doherty High School.
6.
Improve the effective and efficient use of the District’s school
resources through a series of selected school additions and consolidations.
7.
Re-assess the distribution of students in schools throughout the District
and make changes accordingly.
8.
Install air-conditioning in all District schools.
9.
Convert all remaining open-concept schools to more traditional classroom
configurations.
10.
Improve the facilities and technology infrastructure to support a more
technology intense learning environment.
11.
Upgrade and expand the District’s science curriculum facilities.
12.
Upgrade the overall quality of the learning environment in the District’s
existing school facilities.
13.
Provide the necessary facilities to integrate more magnet programs into
the schools.
14.
Improve the District’s alternative education facilities in order to
better meet the alternative education program needs.
15.
Correct
pedestrian / vehicle interaction problems at multiple schools.
2004-2009 Capital
Investment and Funding Plan
Whereas the Master Plan is somewhat general
with a 10+ year planning horizon, the Capital Investment and Funding Plan
(typically referred to as the Capital Plan) only looks at the District’s capital
needs over a five-year window. In addition to this more limited time frame
and great specificity, the Capital Plan also addresses funding options.
The 2004 Capital Plan was derived from the
Long Range School Use Master Plan and its currently funding availability.
It identified projects that fall into three principal categories: Capital
Renewal (what is needed to keep existing buildings going); Capital Improvements
(what is needed to improve our buildings); and Utilization (what is needed to
address school capacity issues, like new schools and additions).
The LRSUS developed Capital Plan, which
identified $128.8 million in capital needs, was submitted to the Board of
Education on May 12, 2004. The LRSUS Task Force unanimously
recommended the District pursue bonds to fund the plan.
After deliberations, this need was revised
to $131.7 million, with $52.9 million for capital renewal; $48.2 million for
capital improvement; $25.5 million for capital utilization; and $5 million for
program management. The principal changes came from including additional
charter school projects that emerged subsequent to the LRSUS work. The
details of the 2004 Capital Plan can be viewed through the
2004 Capital Plan web page
Funding. General Obligation bonds are
financial instruments to raise capital funds via public debt that is paid off
through property taxes. The Colorado Constitution, (TABOR, the Taxpayers
Bill of Rights) requires voter approval of bonded indebtedness.
The 2000 Mill Levy Override, that the
voters approved to fund a series of instructional program initiatives, including
smaller class sizes and increased teacher compensation, has a provision that set
a cap or limit on the maximum property tax millage or revenue. In order to
keep up with the commitments of the Mill Levy Spending Plan [link to the 2000
MLO web page] the tax levy has been held close to this limit.
Unfortunately, this mill levy limit applies to all mill levies supporting the
District including any bonds past and future.
The Board of Education put two questions on
the November 2, 2004 general election ballot – 3F for approval to issue the
general obligation bonds totaling $131.7 million; and 3G to exempt this and
future bonds from the District’s mill levy limit. 3F passed with 54% of
the vote, but 3G failed having received only 49% of the vote. The result
was authority to issue bonds, but not raising the tax limit to pay for the
bonds.
[link to election results]
In the meantime, the District took a number
of actions to address as many of its capital needs as possible. Some of
these were:
·
Refinancing of existing COPs (certificates of participation).
These are lease-purchase financial instruments that buy an asset over a 20-year
period of time. COPs are funded out of the District’s operating budget.
The refinancing occurred during an especially favorable time when interest rates
were at a historic low, and the action saved about $4.9 million and enables the
District to pay off the COPs much earlier. The saved money will enable the
District to increase its future budgets for annual capital needs, and will
reduce the need to depend upon future bonds.
·
QZABs (Qualified Zone Academy Bonds). This is a
Federal program that provides zero-interest bond funding for capital needs at
low income (high free and reduce lunch eligibility) schools. District 11
received the entire state’s allocation of QZAB authority for 2005 -- about $4
million. Although interest free, the District is still responsible for
repaying the principal.
·
Temporary increases to the District’s annual Capital Reserve Fund
allocation. The District reallocated $1.62 million in one-time year-end
General Fund balance to the Capital Reserve Fund increasing spending for FY
2004-05 to about $3.3 million. These funds were used to address the
District’s most urgent capital needs.
·
Energy Performance Contracting. The District implemented a
state-sponsored energy performance contract to fund $5 million in energy
improvement projects. The contract uses a lease-purchase arrangement that
is self-funding from guaranteed energy savings.
Unfortunately, inflation from a year’s
delay in the program is expected to offset these efforts.
On April 27, 2005 the Board of Education
adopted a resolution of intent to pursue the mill levy limit question in the
November 1, 2005 general election. The Board adopted the
election question on August 17, 2005.
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