- Cape Rolling Out Bloomfield Road Art Trail (8/21/19)1
- Donors Pledge Almost Two Grand To Replace SEMO's Possibly Sentient ‘Gum Tree' (8/16/18)
- SEMO and The Will To (Become A Consultant) – Part 2 (6/14/18)
- SEMO and The Will To Do (You Really Want To See That Legal Notice?) – Part 1 (6/4/18)
- Judge, Jury... Trashman (6/1/18)
- Diary of Cape Girardeau Road Deconstruction (5/11/18)
- Trying To Save A Tree From City “Improvements” (4/30/18)2
Suggested Cost-Savings To School District's 'Master Plan'
I've said this before -- actually, I think I may have even alluded to it in my last blog -- and I will say it again, that I have no love of taxes. However, I don't outright hate taxes because I understand I do get some benefit from paying them.
For instance, I appreciate the fact that the fellow with the city public works department comes by every week or so and sweeps the street in front of my house in his street-sweeper machine. It makes my block look spiffy. I like spiffy.
I also appreciate the fire department even though I have never personally used their services and hopefully never, ever will.
And I am thankful for the fact that I can call the police if an apparently rabid or possibly just psychotic raccoon is wandering around my backyard in broad daylight. Yes, that did happen and animal control caught the presumably crack-addled coon acting none to nocturnally and hauled him off to wherever they take wild-animals-that-aren't-quite-all-there.
So I understand that I get value for some of my taxes in the form of communal services.
However, since I don't have any children I do get a wee-bit grumbly when I look at my property tax statements and see that 78% of what I pay, goes to the local public school district.
And now it appears that the Cape Girardeau district is gearing up to ask its citizenry to continue paying 56 cents for every $100 of assessed evaluation that was originally approved by the voters a decade ago for our too-small high school and other capital projects. The district estimates they need $40 million to fund capital projects over the next decade.
In my last blog, I took exception at the district wanting to spend over a third of the forty million on enhancements for the 7-year-old high school even though the school age population of the city of Cape Girardeau has basically been flat for the last 30 years. The administration says it was under-built to begin with and that this money will go a long way towards correcting that problem.
It seems apparent to me that the district needs some help in fiscal management so I thought I might make a few suggestions after perusing its 65-page Master Plan that details many of its facilities woes and wants.
Right away, I noticed in the Master Plan that the district estimates over $1.6 million in just roofing replacements and insulation.
I'm sure with inflation and overall increased labor and material costs and general run-of-the-mill mistakes -- you know, mistakes like building a high school that is apparently modeled after a clown car -- that this amount will probably balloon up to at least three or four million.
Even if it doesn't, that's still a lot of money. Rather than considering this an expense and outsourcing it to fancy-schmancy "contractors" who claim to be "professionals" and "experienced roofers" and are "bonded" and have "insurance," I believe the school should use this need as an educational opportunity.
I think the Career And Technology Center should start a program focusing on roofing and insulation with their "lab" being the roofs of all the schools. Students who might not be college-bound could learn a decent trade that this country needs while at the same time saving the district a bunch of money.
I also think that having a gym at each of the various schools is an antiquated 20th century concept. Rather than incurring the cost of a bunch of new construction, the district should convert all of the gymnasiums into needed offices and classrooms. That would save a bundle.
As for Physical Education classes, they could be taught in any of the basic classrooms using Wii Fit Gaming Consoles. That would take up a lot less space and cost a lot less money. And kids these days understand video games and virtual reality concepts far more easily than let's say a "medicine ball."
I was also struck by the fact that the district wants to build a brand-new two-story Franklin School. The administration is concerned that the current building would not survive a big earthquake. The two-story part of this particular need caught my eye. Multi-story construction is a lot more expensive than single story.
Consider that they are estimating that a new two-story Franklin will cost about $10 million while a similar-sized single-story school currently costs about $6.5 million according to construction cost data available online. That's a big difference.
I think it is obvious that the district really wants to keep an elementary school at the corner of Themis and Louisiana even though it is currently their smallest facility housing only 246 students. If the new Franklin is approved it will be the biggest elementary school in the district in terms of square footage. While building a single level school would be a whole lot cheaper, the land the district owns in this neighborhood probably couldn't accommodate it.
Not to mention the fact that vacating this school would devastate the property values of the homes in the Sunset area. We can't have that.
And who would even want to buy a shaky, leaky, drafty old school building? It's a little too far from their respective campuses to be a useful parking lot for either the University or Southeast Hospital.
I suppose it could be turned into senior citizen housing like what has been done at the old Schultz school on Pacific. Remember, the Schultz school? It was in such bad shape that cars driving by practically caused it to cave-in. Or at least that's what we were led to believe.
So I suppose Franklin would make suitable housing for senior citizens without impacting the property values of the homes in the Sunset area.
Or the district could use my solution and rather than shell out $10 million for a brand-new school, they could keep Franklin just like it is and spend only about $5000.
That's how much 300 top-of-the-line hard hats will cost. Oh sure, I could have recommended cheaper helmets and only spent $1800, but these are our children we're talking about. They deserve the best.
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