Dear Editor,
Every one of us agree Shepherd School buildings are in need of work. We need to give our children and grand-children the best education we can afford. The over whelming reality for our Shepherd School District is our resources are limited by the taxes we all pay. Shepherd is not a large or a wealthy community. If you look at your tax bill, property owners, home owners, ranchers, farmers school taxes are roughly 70% of the total. Thirty years of them for me. A plan that costs more than the community can afford outsmarts our common sense. The issue for this Bond is the difference between what we need and the expensive items on the everybody-gets-everything-they-want wish list.
The Shepherd School Board of Trustees brought forward a $16 million plan two years ago that we voted down not because we didn’t want needed work on the school, but because we could not afford it. The Shepherd School tax district is made up of nearly 51% retired folks on fixed incomes, country homes, ranches, farms and some small businesses. The last proposal would have raised our taxes by about $40.00 per month, about $500 per year, per $200,000 tax assessed value for twenty years. A total of about $10,000 for each $200,000 assessed value over 20 years. The retired folks could not afford it. The increase was too much for most of the home owners. The ranches, farms and businesses would have been hit hardest of all as their assessed values are many times 200K. The Montana Legislature has changed the tax cycle from six years to two years. That means that now, our taxes will increase every two years. More money for the school, every two years.
The Shepherd Board of Trustees have brought forward another proposal for $18 million and this one is being pushed on a fast track. The new proposal will increase taxes about $45.00 per month, or $530 per year for 20 years for each $200,000 tax assessed value (Architect and DA Davidson). Folks with a $400,000 assessment will see their taxes go to about $22,000 over the term of the Bond. Trustees want a Bond vote on May 7, 2019, with the plan to break ground in September 2019. Currently, there are other active Bonds we will continue to pay for during the first years of the new Bond plan. Superintendent says they won’t be added to the new bond and that Shepherd does not have the money to pay them off (?).
The architects made comparisons to Roundup and Lockwood school Bonds, though the fact that their tax payer bases are three to five times larger than Shepherd weren’t mentioned. There has been no open discussion about the fact that 36% of the students in Shepherd get assistance with meals (Superintendent information). We are not a wealthy district.
The new proposal touts $225.00 per square foot for new space including class rooms, science rooms, media center/library, Community Center, another gym, places for students to “hang”, space so they won’t have to go outside and an attractive second story low energy efficient glass front trimmed in wood with an elevator. There has been considerable discussion about the “need” to build enough space to host sports tournaments. It tears down the existing library (originally a restaurant) to remodel a new lunchroom with two story ceiling (not labeled as a third gym). The January 23rd meeting was held in the existing Shepherd Community Center built by the generous folks in the community, talking about building a school with a community center. Sports are important, but their educational value falls below the needed classrooms, science rooms and computer rooms. Our limited resources need to focus on educational needs and security for the kids.
The folks in the community understand that work needs to be done on the kindergarten, science labs, lunch room, nurse’s room and computer room. We understand that the we will need to share the costs for work that will provide a better education for our kids. Community centers, tournament facilities, hanging space and high utility bills for glass fronts won’t change the fact that past graduates take and pay for remedial English, math or science when they get to college (like my kids and grandson). They won’t raise the rank of Shepherd from the bottom half of the other schools in Montana (SchoolDigger.com). Shepherd ranks compared to the other schools in Montana have actually gone down since the $16 million proposal.
I was present during the initial discussions about the needs two years ago. Then as now, the discussions went from what was needed to what was wanted every time the question was asked. I have heard repeatedly that this is 20-30-year plan to build a school for 70% capacity to prepare for future growth. The teachers seated around me in the meetings that support this bond live outside the district. My son graduated in 1992, my daughter in 2012 and grandson in 2015, about the same class sizes, 60+. Second grandson this year, same. The last architect projected over 3000 new homes. There have been a few dozen I can see. The more than 100 homes for sale now make me wonder if folks are pulling out.
This plan for $18 million is more than the retired folks, home owners, ranchers and farmers can afford, again. Every time I bring that up, there is no response.
The entire 100,000 square foot new Medicine Crow school cost $21,664,000, that’s $216 per square foot. The Shepherd plan includes 50,000 square foot for new and 29,000 square foot plan for remodel. There are $7.5 million in shared spaces including a 5100 square foot weight room, 2000 square foot community center, 9500 square foot lunch room and a 14,000 square foot second floor with elevator. The new and remodel on the Elementary School total less than $2.5 million. The rebuild of the Huntley School after the fire cost about the same as this proposal. The majority of the folks that will pay for it for twenty years do not have kids in the school. A community center, space for tournaments and high utility bills do not advance the quality of the education for the kids. The Superintendent lamented at the January 23rd meeting the high costs of the utilities and utility repairs now in the midst of a proposal with a low efficiency high ceiling glass front.
Folks will support fixing some problems in an affordable way. This Bond needs to be common-sense sized to focus on the educational needs. New kindergarten, science labs, computer rooms, lunch room, nurse’s room and security are educational needs. Remodeling the old restaurant building for a lunch room makes more sense than tearing it down. Expensive non-educational space for community gatherings, an expensive elevator, a glass front high ceiling media room, a lunch room with 25 foot ceilings, “hanging” space and new construction so kids do not have to go outside like every previous generation in Montana don’t make sense to me.
This Bond proposal is on a fast track. We will still be paying for the existing bonds when this one starts. Large glass fronts with high ceilings mean high utility bills. Elevators are expensive and high maintenance. We all want to fix the problems in the Shepherd School, but we all have to live within our budgets. The Shepherd School needs to come up with a Bond that focuses on education needs and fixes what we can afford. Putting the kindergarten kids into the halls is not the solution to closing the old Kindergarten. The Administration Building holds a very few people and lots of empty rooms that would work in the interim for the kindergarten kids while a plan we can afford is put together. The Superintendent stated that the school would rent $10,000 a year modular space to store the library books. Why not for the kindergarten kids until a plan that fits our needs and or budget is put together? There is no reason to hurry to out-smart our common sense and out spend our budget.
Vic Feuerstein
Shepherd
