{"id":12712,"date":"2012-08-08T09:49:19","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T13:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=12712"},"modified":"2012-08-08T09:49:19","modified_gmt":"2012-08-08T13:49:19","slug":"new-school-needs-on-par-with-last-bond-of-1-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2012\/08\/08\/new-school-needs-on-par-with-last-bond-of-1-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"New School Needs on Par with Last Bond of $1 Billion"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>The Wake school board\u2019s facility committee heard from staff Tuesday that the district needs 24 new schools, 26 major renovations and a taxpayer-funded bond to pay for them.<\/p>\n

The facility needs are comparable to those under the last bond in 2006, for which taxpayers ponied up $970 million dollars. Plan 2006 was calibrated to fund 19 new schools and 14 major projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cA $1 billion dollar bond isn\u2019t going to happen,\u201d said facilities chair Chris Malone. \u201cThe thought that rolls in my mind is $250, $300 million, maybe as much as $400.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malone, a Republican, is following the lead of the GOP-led County Commission, which is loath to put any tax on the ballot for voters.<\/p>\n

But the school board is not Republican-led. Democrats hold a 5-4 majority.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want the lowest-cost option you build a bunch of boxes and you say, \u2018this many students will fit in this type of box and it doesn\u2019t matter where they come from, we\u2019re going to fill the boxes,\u2019\u201d said Democratic board member Jim Martin.<\/p>\n

Martin didn\u2019t mention a specific figure, but did say, \u201cWe\u2019re not going to be able to have a bond that covers all of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school board and county commission both have to approve the bond amount, which is set to happen around the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Facilities planning staff told the board committee that the construction needs are preliminary and will serve the school system through 2016. School system officials predict that without a bond, the district would face a 20,000-seat shortfall by 2016.<\/p>\n

Politicians of all stripes wish that the building for the school system could be more sustainable and affordable.<\/p>\n

Martin said the school system needs to move away from a \u201ccrisis-to-bond, crisis-to-bond funding mechanism.\u201d<\/p>\n

But planners have said that some bond money is always used for planning, design and land purchase for future bonds, which points towards a multi-faceted planning process.<\/p>\n

Republican County Commissioner Joe Bryan told The News and Observer<\/em><\/a> he\u2019d like to see the price tag for the bond divided up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019d be nice to look at what we have to do over a three or four-year period,\u201d he said in the N&O.<\/em><\/p>\n

But a four-year plan is exactly what staff handed the board committee. It\u2019s also the length of time the last bond was set to run.<\/p>\n

The money for Plan 2006, as it was called, was supposed to run out in 2010. Planning officials say that because growth slowed down with the recession, the district is roughly where it planned to be in regards to the construction of new schools. Major renovations have been put on the back burner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to, as a community, develop a long-range plan where we\u2019re actually building infrastructure commiserate with our growth,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

Wake County has grown faster than most places in the nation, adding as many as 7,500 students during peak growth. Yet the bond previous to 2006, which was put on the ballot in 1999, did not pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday as a community I\u2019m not sure we\u2019d have the courage to build the Research Triangle Park,\u201d Martin said. \u201cWhen it was built it was seen as ridiculous expense. But look at what it did today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need some of that same mentality with our school systems,\u201d he continued. \u201cIf we build quality schools, people, jobs and economic development will come.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wake school board members got their first look at the building and renovation needs for the school system on Tuesday. The needs are comparable to the last bond in 2006, which taxpayers approved at nearly $1 billion dollars. Opinion is divided over the price tag voters will see on a bond next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,55],"tags":[743,838,839],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12712"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}