Budget woes, school closure flush restrooms
ACTON — The ghost of Acton School continues to haunt the district that voted to close the campus 18 months ago.
Trustees for the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District voted 4-1 to cancel a restroom installation project at Meadowlark Elementary and High Desert Middle School on Thursday night. Part of the reasoning, aside from fiscal considerations, was a lingering discontent over Acton School’s closure.
“There’s a strong feeling in my mind that we’re going back to Acton,” said Trustee Melissa Harnett, who voted with the majority.
Board President Fred Heslep said the budget and Acton School factored into his decision.
“Primarily, it’s a budgetary issue,” he said. “A week or two ago, we were in dire straights financially.”
But he added, “I don’t want to put restrooms at Meadowlark if we’re going to reconfigure and dramatically change the size of the school.”
The Division of the State Architect, which oversees school construction, told Acton-Agua Dulce Unified to install restrooms at both campuses months ago. Meadowlark did not have enough toilets and High Desert’s restrooms were too far from some classrooms.
The move will free up $196,000 in initial savings. Part of the deal requires the district to pay a $9,450 settlement to a contractor who already started work on the project. The district will now try to sell two modular restrooms it purchased months ago for $53,115 each.
Part of the money released will go to debt service, with any remainder going to campuses for instructional materials.
The move follows two weeks of nervousness over the district’s budget. A draft presented to the board on June 23 projected a $600,000 deficit, an alarming figure to trustees who voted to close Acton School in order to save $400,000 in February 2004.
The $600,000 shortfall assumed the state would take the district’s developer fee revenue upon awarding a hardship grant, for which Acton-Agua Dulce Unified is applying.
Acton-Agua Dulce Unified does not technically qualify for hardship, except on appeal, but the district is running out of options if it wants a permanent high school since the last three bond measures failed.
If the district gets a hardship grant, it would have to trade in some of its developer fees, which currently pay for leases on portable classrooms.
Jennifer Noga, the district’s director of business affairs, recently learned that the state will let Acton-Agua Dulce Unified keep one year’s worth of loan and lease payments.
“The bottom line is, because we have so much debt, which exceeds our expected income (in developer fees), the state allows us to pay our debts first,” Superintendent Linda Wagner explained.
At the board meeting Wagner lined up a soda can with a larger McDonald’s cup to illustrate the difference between what the district could keep (the cup), and what it took in from developer fees (the can).
“We’re expecting to get $380,000 in developer fees every year,” she said. “When you can keep that in there, it makes a huge difference.”
The superintendent added, “Our hardship application doesn’t hurt the budget.”
While trustees expressed concern over the budget, which is now barely in the black, uncertainty over the district’s configuration weighed just as heavily on some votes.
Harnett said the community was still split 50-50 over whether Acton was the right school to close. Harnett is waiting for a district needs assessment and enrollment figures to come in September, but she believes those numbers will vindicate Acton.
“We have time,” she said. Given that, it wouldn’t make any sense if we make decision now if we can wait three months and have more information.”
She added, “We’re being diligent, I think.”
The school board addressed a plan in June to swap Acton and Meadowlark Schools, moving every student and teacher to Acton, then leasing Meadowlark. Trustees failed to reach a consensus and delayed a final decision until after elections in November.
Trustees Heslep, Max Duran and Steve Harbeson are up for reelection, but all three have said they don’t plan to run.
Wagner, the superintendent, lamented another plan reversal by the board.
“In the short term, it relieves the general fund,” she said. “In the long term, I still believe the consolidation into four schools and the leasing of the closed school makes more long-term sense.
“In my perspective, the restroom installation would have been one step closer to the consolidation that needs to take place.”
Wagner added, “Once we’ve made a decision, it seems best to stick to it.”
Heslep admitted the board might appear to be flip-flopping.
“I’m concerned about that, but on the other hand, two weeks ago we were half a million dollars in the hole,” he said.
“If our budget were more stable, these decisions would be easier.”
Harnett said the board itself was changing, and recent decisions reflect that change.
“The board is comprised of five different individuals, and I think there has been a shift among the board,” she said.
“You can definitely see over the course of the past year that there’s been a shift.”
Tags: acton, agua dulce, education