The Leopold Referendum: No Due Diligence

I oppose the Leopold School referendum.

I oppose it not because I'm a Republican (I'm not), not because I'm a Democrat (I'm not, though the Mayor would have you believe that that would constitute an oxymoron -- a sad commentary on what it means to be a Democrat, seems to me), but because opposing the Leopold referendum is the responsible decision.

(My political leaning, if you must know: A left wing conservative! "Always do the right thing, leaving as much money as you can to do more right things.").

The Leopold referendum wastes $10M over 15 years.

The only real motivation for this blindness was "we promised the Leopold parents back in 2002", and great lobbying by the Leopold crowd -- to the potential detriment of other schools and kids in the district. Placing this promise in perspective, in 2002, when the promise was first made, the estimate for a new school at Leopold was $7M. In 2004, the initial estimate became $11M; the referendum now calls for $14.5M -- a 200% increase from 2002. Quite a jump!

The most responsible decision the Board could have made was to construct another addition to the Leopold school, borrowing up to $10M from the State Trust Fund (no referendum is required), as we did for the 2003 addition to Leopold. And we wouldn't have to pay for a new principal at this new school, at $100,000+ per year, because their wouldn't be a new school! Another savings. (Or maybe build the $7M school, originally promised?).

Our savings of $10M over the referendum is the difference between the 15-year cost of the referendum and the anticipated principle and interest payments back to the State on the $10M loan. Our 15-year cost is $23M, not the $14.5M, which is the money we get to keep. The $23M is this $14.5M plus the 60% increase Madison taxpayers are required to pay under the State's Equalization Forumla -- we're paying welfare to other school districts!

What could we do with the $10M not spent on the Leopold site? Make additions to southwest schools to accommodate expected growth (also limits growth at Leopold), and additions to schools on the east side: both will be needed anyway.

And this would have been the prudent thing to do, given the flux in the Ridgewood apartments area, which calls into question the growth estimates for Leopold.

The School Board failed to follow their own policy and consider an addition to Leopold as an alternative, instead jumping full speed ahead, without deliberation, to building a new school. In fact, the Long Range Planning citizen committee, that was charged with the initial deliberations, spent the majority of their time at meetings, practising their Leopold referendum campaign speeches, instead of deliberating over the substance. Their lack of even reasonable due diligence in the execution of their responsibilties leaves the voters to make emotional instead of logical and factual decisions.

Send the referendum back to them. Demand that do their job. When they've done their due diligence, then we can talk.

Posted by Larry Winkler at May 19, 2005 8:49 AM
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