School district defends wish list expenditures

More PR in store

Chuck Reitinger and some of his friends weren’t happy to see the school district get all of its wishes this year, and questioned the legal and ethical ground under the Gunnison Watershed School Board’s decision to put surplus bond revenue back into the schools. At the very least, they’d like to be heard in the process of deciding where the $880,000 in remaining bond revenues should go.

Reitinger came to the board on behalf of a group of so-called “senile citizens” who are concerned about the district’s apparent nonchalance in spending so much money. “We’re quite happy that the bond issue came in and that we had money left over. That’s a happiness for us,” Reitinger said. “Many of us who grew up in the ’30s and during the Great Depression, we keep hearing once in a while about how 880 grand was chicken feed. Well those of us who grew up in the Great Depression don’t think 880 grand is chicken feed.”
When the final numbers came in under budget from the RE1J Watershed School District renovation project last year, the school board members weighed their options: use the money to pay down the bond, or they could return some things to the plans for six district schools that had been removed to rein in cost.
It had been a year since the previous school board—of which several members remain—had moved in the direction of giving each site the improvements that hadn’t made the first cut. But the door had been left open to repaying the bond and the topic resurfaced before any decisions were made last month. Throughout the process of building the “wish list” over the last year, no one from the community attended meetings to weigh in on the process publicly.
Reitinger and the group of Gunnison residents he went to the meeting to represent want to see that door open again, and the discussion restarted about where the money is going.
He said he had spoken with an attorney in “friendly conversation” who wondered if it is legal for the school board to use the money remaining from the bond sale for “anything you want to do with it.”
“I’m surprised to find out that many of the people I’ve been hanging around are quite upset about the laundry list they saw,” Reitinger said. “It looked like a Christmas list to them and they didn’t like a lot of it.
“Many of us supported it and we, in a way, gave a gift to the district of $55 million for a lot of different projects,” he continued. “In the ballot language, it didn’t at the end, I think, say ‘If we’ve got any left over we’ll spend it any way we want.’ I don’t think it said that. And if it isn’t a legal problem then we would like to see some public relations come from this board saying it’s not an ethical problem, either.”
Superintendent Jon Nelson is unequivocal in his belief that the school district is on sound legal ground in using the remaining funds for added improvements, even if the public relations effort to make it more palatable in the community was lacking.
And the board didn’t just decide last month to divvy up $879,708 on more than 20 additional improvements across six school sites. It has been a discussion that has come up at public meetings for more than a year.
“We take our responsibility very seriously and we feel that both ethically and legally we’re in the right with that decision,” school board president Anne Hausler responded. “But, the conversation about [the additional money], which we had in this room to a very limited audience, probably does deserve some exposure to make sure that there is clear understanding in the community.
“One of the things we looked at was ‘What if we put that money back in to expedite the bond redemption? How would that benefit the taxpayer?’” Hausler went on. “And we weighed any miniscule benefit to any individual taxpayer against what we saw as the collective good of the students of the school district.”
As a percentage of the $110,655,000 repayment cost of the bond, the cost of all of the items on the wish list add up to be less than eight-tenths of a percent.
Board member Bill Powell, a retired school superintendent, pointed out that the board knew the possibility existed early on that money could be left over at the end of the project, but not that there would be. He said, “We were holding our breath as to whether that $55 million would be enough to cover what needed to be done.”
And he addressed the concerns about the ballot language, saying, “We set the language in such a way to take care of the big pieces.”
Powell continued, “I want to represent senior citizens. I want to represent all citizens. But the citizens also need to come to the board when these things are on the regular agenda and give us some input, not after the fact. But everything is open for discussion until it’s actually done.”
The items on the district’s wish list certainly aren’t all done. The item Reitinger and his friends had the biggest problem with was the addition of lighting at the Gunnison High School football and baseball fields at a cost of $100,000.
Reitinger, a retired dentist who has been living in Gunnison for 51 years, sat on the school board for nine years—as president for two—and has been a supporter of high school sports almost the entire time. He put four boys through the Gunnison High School and all of them played football, but none under the lights.
And seeing the school district make what appeared to be an internal decision with the public’s money made Reitinger warn the board members about any future need to ask the public for money.
“Do you see in the future, like next year or two years from now, are you going to be asking for a mil levy override? I think depending on what you do on this issue, that mil levy override could be in jeopardy if you need it,” Reitinger warned. “I think I’ve said enough.”
None of the board members, or the superintendent, could say what the future would hold, although deeper cuts from the state are expected again this year. But Nelson pointed out that the additional items weren’t add-ons at all but “were actually in the plans way back when, and then they were sort of designated as alternates.”
Nelson concedes that many of the items on the list aren’t directly related to learning, but that doesn’t mean that don’t have value in the schools.
“If you look at the list of items that the Board approved the majority of those items are life safety items, and so there may not be a direct impact on learning, but the buildings will be secure, outdated heat systems will function, additional lighting in parking lots will ensure student and staff safety, etc.,” he said. “These types of things provide the elements that we feel our important as parents entrust their students to us.”
Nelson said he had taken note of all the questions raised and would be prepared to respond to those during the next regular board meeting on February 14.
“Anytime a concerned citizen comes to the board we all take it very seriously and we will do our best to be able to answer the questions that are raised.  That is my task between now and the next board meeting,” he said.