Vista Unified says it needs $4 million annually to run 5 new schools

By: ROB O'DELL - Staff Writer | Saturday, July 23, 2005 10:57 PM PDT ∞

VISTA ---- Vista Unified School District officials have said repeatedly that they had the money to build the five schools, costing $144.5 million, that remain from a 2002 bond measure. The question now is, how will the district pay to keep the schools open once they are built.

District officials said the operating costs of the new schools will run from $3.7 million to $4.4 million annually, which will force the district to find more money to cover those costs or find ways to squeeze money from an already tight budget.

Because the district's enrollment is declining ---- state funds for most school districts are based on enrollment ---- the district says it is not anticipating more revenues for opening and operating the schools. They are: Maryland Elementary School, Rancho Minerva Middle School, Gen. Murray Continuation High School, and two magnet high schools at Melrose Drive and Highway 76.

"There's no new money because there's no new students," said the district's chief financial officer, Pam Hayden.

Money to build the schools will come from Proposition O, the $140 million bond measure approved by voters in 2002 that is being matched with $130 million in state money.

The roughly $4 million in operating costs for the new schools must come from an operating budget for a district whose finances have been in arrears for years, as it has cut $28 million from its budget in the last four years. Things got so bad that the San Diego County Office of Education threatened to take over the district's finances in 2003.

The fiscal year that began July 1 is the first in several years that did not require huge program cuts to balance the budget. However, the district will have to cut an additional $1 million this fiscal year because of a provision in this year's state budget that will end the state's 2 percent payment to the California State Teachers Retirement System. That will force individual school districts ---- or teachers themselves ---- to make up the difference.

Necessary choices

Board President Carol Herrera said last week that the district will face tough but necessary choices in funding the new schools. She added that the district hopes that its declining student population will turn around, giving the district more money to run those schools.

"We're hoping that this little blip (declining enrollment) is going to change," Herrera said. "If it doesn't, then we need to make cuts for them to operate."

Herrera said the new schools are critical to relieve overcrowding, adding that they will create a better learning environment for children. She said that even though the district has watched enrollment drop every year since 2000, many schools remain overcrowded.

Hayden said enrollment dropped by 119 in 2000-01, 267 in 2001-02, 207 in 2002-03, 474 in 2003-04, and 557 for the year just ended. She said the district projects enrollment will drop by 455 this academic year, for a total student population of 23,852.

The district is building schools despite losing students is because it changed from a complex multitrack, full-year schedule two years ago, and hence is overcrowded, Hayden said.

Herrera said she hopes the new schools will attract some of the 730 students who transferred out of the district for this academic year.

If just 350 of those 730 students were to return, she said, that would translate into an estimated $2.1 million from the state, based on the current formula of about $6,000 in state funds per student.

"As the schools become less crowded, we hope that the kids will come back," she said.

Trustee Steve Lilly said last week that relieving overcrowding at the high schools could lead to increased attendance and lower dropout rates, both of which would also increase money flowing into the district.

Enter the district's critics

The cost for the new schools, which will open between 2006 and 2008, has stoked the ire of critics who have contended for months that the district doesn't have the money to build or operate them.

After saying that the district had mismanaged the bond measure and was running out of money to build the schools, critics learned last month that the district was completing the classrooms for the new elementary, middle, continuation and dual magnet high schools with prefabricated modular buildings. Those buildings are substantially cheaper, but don't last as long and are less energy efficient than traditionally built schools.

At the time, Trustee Stephen Guffanti, an outspoken critic of the handling of the bond measure, said the district had pulled a "pretty standard bait and switch" by telling the public it had the money to build the schools, and then not telling that it only had the money to build them with modular classrooms. The district said that it had a long-term plan to use modular construction.

Guffanti said the district needs to rethink its plan to build all of the schools because it doesn't have the money to pay for operating them.

Guffanti, who has been a staunch opponent of the dual magnet high schools in eastern Oceanside, said the district should drop those schools and instead convert Lincoln Middle School to a magnet high school after Rancho Minerva Middle School is finished.

He said that Maryland Elementary should take over the area currently served by Olive Elementary, with Olive Elementary becoming a magnet middle school. Then he said Lincoln should be converted to a magnet high school, with its students being shifted to the new Rancho Minerva Middle School.

"This seems like the best solution that I can think of to save money and help our kids," he said. "At some point, you have to not build some of these schools."

Guffanti added that the additional operating money will be needed at the same time the bill comes due for the teachers' early retirement benefit that the district has not funded. That has led to a $18 million unfunded liability that is sure to grow before the retirement benefit is ended next year. The county Office of Education estimates that $12.6 million of the $18 million liability will occur between 2009 and 2010.

Dan Piro, another district critic, said he believed the district will pay the extra $4 million in operating costs for the new schools by imposing cost-cutting on students.

"They'll put the screws to kids in some way," said Piro, a member of the committee that helped shape the 2002 bond measure.

Staggered costs

Hayden put the rough estimate costs of Gen. Raymond Murray Continuation High School at between $300,000 and $400,000, Maryland at $500,000, Rancho Minerva at $1.2 million to $1.5 million and the dual magnet high schools at a total cost of $1.7 million to $2 million.

Herrera pointed out that the schools will not open at the same time, and thus the entire $4 million will not have to come out of the district's budget until the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Gen. Raymond Murray and Maryland Elementary schools are opening in 2006-07 and will add annual operating costs of $800,000 to $900,000. Rancho Minerva is slated to open in January 2007, but the district will simply transfer students from Lincoln to Rancho Minerva for half a year and shutter Lincoln for repairs.

District plans call for Rancho Minerva and Lincoln to open in the 2007-08 school year, with Rancho Minerva as the comprehensive middle school serving central and eastern Vista, and Lincoln as a magnet school. A magnet school caters to a specific course of study, such as mathematics or the arts, and draws students from throughout the district.

Those schools would add between $1.2 million to $1.5 million to the district's budget in fiscal year 2007-08, on top of the $800,000 to $900,000 from the previous year.

In 2008-09, the magnet schools are scheduled to be completed and opened, adding an additional $1.7 million to $2 million to the district's budget.

Herrera said the staggered openings give the district opportunities to find new funding before the whole $4 million is added to its budget. Still, she said, the district may have tough budget choices to make.

"What we're going to have to do is make adjustments," she said. "There's no new money out there. ... Those are just the realities that we are dealing with."

Contact staff writer Rob O'Dell at (760) 631-6620 or rodell@nctimes.com.

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