Wichita district wants bond issues to rebuild, consolidate schools. Check out four options
Wichita school officials want to know if voters would support a series of bond issues to rebuild and renovate schools over the next two decades.
On Monday, consultants hired by the school board laid out four options ranging from a major investment in 27 new or renovated schools to doing nothing but focusing on deferred maintenance needs at existing buildings.
All four plans outlined by the Ohio-based firm Woolpert include consolidating either 18 or 19 schools — a process district officials say is different than a closure because students and staff at low-attendance schools would all be moved together into a different building.
“These buildings — so many of them are past their useful life. It is an opportunity to reimagine what your schools look like. An era of rebuilding is here across the country,” David Sturtz of Woolpert said during the first of two public meetings hosted with district officials Monday. Two more are scheduled for Tuesday evening.
USD 259, the largest district in Kansas, faces $1.2 billion of deferred maintenance needs. With enrollment declining and 18,573 empty seats in classrooms, it simply doesn’t make sense to keep 83 buildings in operation, Sturtz said. A split Wichita school board already voted to shutter four elementaries and two middle schools at the end of this semester.
None of the four plans included dollar amounts. Sturtz told The Eagle that although his firm has rough cost estimates for each plan, those won’t be made public until June, when the school board receives recommendations about the facilities master plan.
“Rather than get folks focused on the dollar amount right now, we wanted to focus on the time frame,” he said.
“Do you want to catch up on deferred maintenance in 10 years or do you want to rebuild your district in 20? What’s the path that you want to go down? People answer that question and we’ll come up with a plan with the dollar signs.”
Option 1
Completely rebuild 17 schools
Renovate eight schools
Expand two schools
Maintain 38 schools
Consolidate 18 schools
Option 2
Completely rebuild 10 schools
Renovate 10 schools
Expand three schools
Maintain 42 schools
Consolidate 18 schools
Option 3
Completely rebuild three schools
Renovate three schools
Expand zero schools
Maintain 58 schools
Consolidate 19 schools
Option 4
Completely rebuild zero schools
Renovate zero schools
Expand zero schools
Maintain 64 schools
Consolidate 19 schools
Rebuilding vs. replacing schools
USD 259’s local option budget property tax is maxed out at 33% of the general fund budget, meaning any major project to renovate existing schools or build new ones would have to be funded through a bond issue. That would require voters to approve a property tax increase to pay off bonds. The last Wichita school bond issue was approved in 2008, when a narrow 2% margin of voters favored the $370 million renovation and expansion package,
The average age of Wichita school buildings is 60 years and the average facilities condition index (FCI) is 0.54. FCI, a metric used to assess deferred maintenance needs, is a score that ranges from 0 (pristine condition) to 1 (extremely poor condition).
“You rebuild when the cost to repair versus the cost to replace is so high that it doesn’t make financial sense. That’s the FCI,” Sturtz said. “When the FCI reaches about 50%, you scratch your head and say, ‘If I’m going to fix this thing, I’m going to be spending half of the value that I would replacing it.’”
He described renovation as a somewhat less extreme option than a total rebuild.
“A renovation is when the building itself can work for the long haul. It just has a lot of needs,” Sturtz said. “So many needs that it doesn’t make sense to à la carte fix the boiler and the carpets. It makes sense to get in there with the Bobcat, blow some stuff out and rebuild it.”
Sturtz said Option 1, the “major rebuilding” with 27 rebuilt, renovated and expanded schools, would require 15 to 20 years and a series of bond issues.
Option 2, the “lesser rebuilding” with 23 rebuilt, renovated and expanded schools, would also require a series of bond issues but could be completed in 10 to 15 years, he said.
Options 3 and 4, which prioritize investing in existing buildings, could reduce the district’s deferred maintenance needs to just over $500,000 in about five to 10 years, factoring in consolidations, he said.
“Consolidation makes sense when you have a surplus of [classroom] seats in an area where there’s other viable nearby alternatives that are either already in better condition or will be by the time this plan is enacted,” Sturtz said.
“On the backside of consolidations, when four adjacent elementary schools that are old and not in great shape get turned into two right-sized and accessible schools in the same community, nobody’s weeping.”
‘You have to see the buildings’
Sandra Rankin is the education chair for the Wichita branch of the NAACP after spending 35 years in USD 259 as a teacher and psychologist. She attended the second of two meetings Monday night.
Rankin said she wants to know which buildings would be considered for renovation and consolidation.
“Because it’s going to involve taxes, I think you have to see the buildings,” Rankin said. “Some of the schools I’ve been in, they’re in pretty good shape.”
Sturtz said his firm has completed facilities assessments for roughly 50 districts in 20 states, and Wichita’s deferred maintenance situation is “among the most challenging” he’s ever seen.
“You’re in this challenge for two reasons,” he said. “Hard decisions weren’t made decades ago — rebuilding, consolidating. Those previous bonds weren’t all invested in the boring stuff, the roofs and the carpets and the boilers and all that. And the last bond you had was in the Obama administration.”
Luke Newman, USD 259’s director of facilities, said most districts Wichita’s size pass bond issues every five to 10 years. He said the district leadership team will be responsive to community input before presenting the facilities master plan to the school board in June.
“I don’t think we’re going to make recommendations that aren’t in the best interest of the district and the community in general,” Newman said. “Now, if the community voice were to be overwhelmingly ‘We don’t want to do anything with any of our buildings,’ we would have to definitely seriously consider” focusing on deferred maintenance.
The district plans to release a community survey in May to solicit more input ahead of the facilities recommendation coming before the board. That master plan is also expected to include recommendations for what to do with the six buildings that will close at the end of the semester.
Woolpert will host two more community meetings Tuesday, one at West High at 5:30 p.m. and another at North High at 7:30 p.m.
Contributing: Eduardo Castillo and Amy Renee Leiker of The Eagle
