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A taxing decision
Published 9/27/2008 in News : Education
By EMILY BEHLMANN
ebehlmann@gctelegram.com
Many of the Garden City residents and business owners on Main Street said they see the need to address what they and USD 457 officials say is an overcrowded Garden City High School.
Many aren't sure, however, whether the answer is a $97.5 million bond issue to fund, among other things, a 2,000-student high school.
The bond issue, set to be on the Nov. 4 ballot, would pay for the USD 457 Board of Education's long-range facility plan, in which the most costly component is a $92.5 million high school to replace the current one. To be constructed north of Mary Street and east of Campus Drive inside the U.S. Highway 50/83/400 Bypass, the school would be built with expansion in mind, so it could house 2,250 students in the future, according to architects.
The remainder of bond issue funds would go toward conversion of the current GCHS building into a middle school, conversion of Abe Hubert Middle School into an elementary school and expansion of Garfield Elementary School into a centralized early-childhood center.
The plan
The plan to replace GCHS with a bigger building was one of two recommendations by a community committee that studied 10 options for alleviating high school crowding and administrative concerns about inadequate science and vocational labs, tight quarters in music rooms and other issues.
According to GCHS Principal James Mireles, the building was constructed to house comfortably about 1,500 people, and a preliminary enrollment head count taken this week showed 1,905 students at GCHS. That's up 16 students from last year but down from the 2,001 students enrolled the year before.
The board voted 4-3 for the plan that would be funded by the bond issue, with board members Mike Utz, John Scheopner and Bruce Reichmuth instead favoring construction of a second high school.
John Hart is one voter who thinks the board should have gone the other direction. The father of an Abe Hubert Middle School eighth-grader, Hart said he plans to vote against the bond issue because he doesn't think it's the best educational solution, or the most cost efficient.
He'd rather see a smaller school environment, with smaller class sizes, than have his daughter attend a larger school, he said.
Julie Rupp also said she thinks having two high schools would be beneficial, since it would provide students with additional opportunities for involvement in athletics and other extracurricular activities. She can't vote on the proposal because she lives in Holcomb, but she said it will impact her taxes, since she co-owns The Good Sport in Garden City.
There are better ways to spend the money than on "one huge high school," Rupp said.
Plenty of other communities add a second high school if their first one is too crowded, Hart said. Adding high schools was the choice in Kansas communities including Maize, Goddard, Salina, Lawrence, De Soto and Olathe, while voters in Dodge City opted to replace their high school with a larger building.
Hart said it might not take long for a new, single high school to get crowded, too, and then the district will have to do something else -- with people like his child footing the bill then.
"We need to quit throwing up more schools and putting patches on the situation," he said.
Not all USD 457 voters favor a two-high-school plan, though, according to recent history. Bond issues to build a second high school were defeated in 1998 and 2000, with some opponents saying they thought having two high schools would divide the community.
A phone survey of 400 residents, conducted in January by DeSieghardt Strategic Communications, Salina, also played a role in the board's decision for a one-high-school plan, several board members said at the time.
It showed that 43 percent of respondents would "favor" or "strongly favor" replacing GCHS, while 33 percent would "oppose" or "strongly oppose" the idea. On the other hand, 37 percent said they would "favor" or "strongly favor" a second high school, while 46 percent said they would "oppose" or "strongly oppose" that plan.
Growth or decline?
Some other voters' apprehensions about the bond issue are based on their concerns that Garden City isn't growing.
Unlike Hart, landlord Steve Burgess, of Garden Spot Rentals, said he doesn't think GCHS will keep needing more and more space, though he acknowledges conditions might be tight now.
He's not sure yet how he'll vote on the issue, which he said would increase the taxes he pays on his properties by about $15,000 a year. But he said it's hard to favor it if the community doesn't see projects go through like Sunflower Electric Power Corp.'s proposed plant expansion in Holcomb. The project's clean-air permit was denied by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
"I would support this if we had a huge influx of people," Burgess said. "I don't see that happening."
He remembers a time not long ago when just the opposite happened. When Garden City's ConAgra beef packing plant burned down in 2000, more than 2,000 jobs went with it, but Burgess said the population decline didn't stop there. He rented to 15 nurses, for instance, who were no longer needed in the community after so many ConAgra workers left town.
"It's a domino effect," he said.
Like the city's population, the school district's overall enrollment dropped just after the fire, and it has been declining ever since. This year, there are an estimated 7,241 students enrolled, down from last year's 7,277, according to the school district.
Garden City's population, though, has rebounded to pre-ConAgra fire levels, according to a count the city takes based on the number of households using utilities and the Census Bureau's estimates of household size. Garden City Planning Director Kaleb Kentner said his department estimated Garden City's population in January 2008 to be 28,743, which for the first time surpasses the 2000 Census count of 28,451.
And through all the changes, GCHS's enrollment hasn't followed a trend, but has fluctuated between a 2000 low of 1,887 and a 2003 high of 2,013.
Regardless, Mireles has said that it takes more space than it used to operate an educational facility, citing changes like a need to house more technological equipment and mandates that require room for more special education programs.
Cost concerns
Even if they agree that action needs to be taken, other voters echo Rupp's concerns: "That's a lot of money."
According to the school district, the bond issue would cost the $100,000 homeowner $109.94 a year for 25 years; the $250,000 commercial business owner $597.50 a year for 25 years; and the agricultural property owner $68.83 per 160 acres every year for 25 years, for dry crop land.
"That's gonna hit us landlords hugely," Burgess said.
Others would be affected too, and Rupp said she thinks people are already nervous about their finances in an uncertain economy.
Plans like building a second high school probably would be less expensive since that school likely would be smaller than what is proposed, said both Rupp and Hart.
Burgess favors adding on to the current high school instead, which he said probably would be the most efficient use of funds.
Cost and other concerns, however, aren't necessarily deterring all voters.
Tim Regan, of Regan's Jewelers, also is uncertain about how he'll cast his ballot, but said he probably will vote for the bond issue. He said the high school has been crowded for a long time -- even when he was a student there in the 1960s -- and that he's nervous about his youngest daughter attending such a crowded school next year.
And as for the cost, "everything is expensive," he said, and "the youth is our future."
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