WCSB Special Referendum 5/17/2011

The Superintendent was quoted as making the iPad comment during her presentation to the Tea Party. I was not there (not a member) but more than one person contacted me about that. I believe that the statement was that students would not read from books anymore - they were now accustomed to computer screens.

The stadium is your baby and I understand ADA requirements must be addressed, but give me a break Mark 6.3 or even 2.1 is in stark contrast to other capital needs. How many buses do we still have that are not air conditioned and how many would 2.1 million buy?

Priorities seem a little out of whack.

I still say vote "Yes" tomorrow.

Go figure.

Its complicated !

(1) If the district school tax is not provided in the General Appropriations Act or the substantive bill implementing the General Appropriations Act, each district school board desiring to participate in the state allocation of funds for current operation as prescribed by s. 1011.62(12) shall levy on the taxable value for school purposes of the district, exclusive of millage voted under the provisions of s. 9(b) or s. 12, Art. VII of the State Constitution, a millage rate not to exceed the amount certified by the commissioner as the minimum millage rate necessary to provide the district required local effort for the current year, pursuant to s. 1011.62(4)(a)1. In addition to the required local effort millage levy, each district school board may levy a nonvoted current operating discretionary millage. The Legislature shall prescribe annually in the appropriations act the maximum amount of millage a district may levy.
(2) In addition to the maximum millage levy as provided in subsection (1), each school board may levy not more than 1.5 mills against the taxable value for school purposes for district schools, including charter schools at the discretion of the school board, to fund:
(a) New construction and remodeling projects, as set forth in s. 1013.64(3)(b) and (6)(b) and included in the district’s educational plant survey pursuant to s. 1013.31, without regard to prioritization, sites and site improvement or expansion to new sites, existing sites, auxiliary facilities, athletic facilities, or ancillary facilities.
(b) Maintenance, renovation, and repair of existing school plants or of leased facilities to correct deficiencies pursuant to s. 1013.15(2).
(c) The purchase, lease-purchase, or lease of school buses.
(d) The purchase, lease-purchase, or lease of new and replacement equipment; computer hardware, including electronic hardware and other hardware devices necessary for gaining access to or enhancing the use of electronic content and resources or to facilitate the access to and the use of a school district’s electronic learning management system pursuant to s. 1006.281, excluding software other than the operating system necessary to operate the hardware or device; and enterprise resource software applications that are classified as capital assets in accordance with definitions of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, have a useful life of at least 5 years, and are used to support districtwide administration or state-mandated reporting requirements.
(e) Payments for educational facilities and sites due under a lease-purchase agreement entered into by a district school board pursuant to s. 1003.02(1)(f) or s. 1013.15(2), not exceeding, in the aggregate, an amount equal to three-fourths of the proceeds from the millage levied by a district school board pursuant to this subsection. For the 2009-2010 fiscal year, the three-fourths limit is waived for lease-purchase agreements entered into before June 30, 2009, by a district school board pursuant to this paragraph.
(f) Payment of loans approved pursuant to ss. 1011.14 and 1011.15.
(g) Payment of costs directly related to complying with state and federal environmental statutes, rules, and regulations governing school facilities.
(h) Payment of costs of leasing relocatable educational facilities, of renting or leasing educational facilities and sites pursuant to s. 1013.15(2), or of renting or leasing buildings or space within existing buildings pursuant to s. 1013.15(4).
(i) Payment of the cost of school buses when a school district contracts with a private entity to provide student transportation services if the district meets the requirements of this paragraph.

The Superintendent was quoted as making the iPad comment during her presentation to the Tea Party. I was not there (not a member) but more than one person contacted me about that. I believe that the statement was that students would not read from books anymore - they were now accustomed to computer screens.

The stadium is your baby and I understand ADA requirements must be addressed, but give me a break Mark 6.3 or even 2.1 is in stark contrast to other capital needs. How many buses do we still have that are not air conditioned and how many would 2.1 million buy?

Priorities seem a little out of whack.

I still say vote "Yes" tomorrow.

Go figure.

Thanks Bob for the yes vote. We can discuss those capital needs at length. I will tell you that I will not vote to undertake that project until I know our classroom needs can be met. I really believe we can. Believe it or not, I am not a big fan of air-conditioned buses. There are some issues with them. But, we have voted to buy them as we replace our current fleet each year. Thanks again....

And I'm no fan of 6.3 million dollar football stadiums. LOL

There must be a need for air Mark the bus that comes by my house daily at about 45 mph says he is trying to keep the bus cool. Live on a dead end street that has Slow kids at play 25mph signs.

Must have been a top fuel driver in another life. Lol

At the risk of irking the regulars I'd like for a board member to answer the question as to why the associate teacher proposal was killed. This would have brought on new teachers to help meet the class size amendment and as I understand it the salary would have been much less than regular teacher salaries without the costly benefits. It seems that this would have solved some of the problems that the board blames on the 2002 Class size amendment which finally kicked in.

Don't forget to vote 'yes' today. What time do the polls close?

I consider myself a TEA Party member and I am for the reduction of taxes at every level. We must use common sense with regard to our broken tax system. In this case, that means voting YES on the millage transfer.

Polls are open until 7.

To the adminstrators of this board, blah, blah...inane comments...blah, blah...give a blah... are. So there it is folks.

Not wanting to quote all the drivel, I must ask what does the above statement have to do with the context of this thread, which you have totally derailed? You obviously have an axe to grind, but the horse left the stable long ago. No one gives a $hit. Don't whine about your misfortune on a BB, run for a seat on the school board if you want to make a difference.

btw...

Referendum
(Total Precincts: 34; Reported Precincts: 19 [55.8%]) Total: 2,587
YES 2,101 (81.21%)
NO 486 (18.78%)

Well, I guess this thread is dead. It passed overwhelmingly. The only sad part is that because of the system we have to vote on a transfer at all.

And I'm no fan of 6.3 million dollar football stadiums. LOL

There must be a need for air Mark the bus that comes by my house daily at about 45 mph says he is trying to keep the bus cool. Live on a dead end street that has Slow kids at play 25mph signs.

Must have been a top fuel driver in another life. Lol

At first glance I thought spending 6 million dollars on a football field for high school was crazy, but ADA and Title 9 are federal laws and non-compliance would be even more expensive. What we need to do is fight to repeal these intrusive laws that force local governments into such spending.
I am glad the ballot initiative passed but think it is crazy to require such a vote. The local school board should have complete control over the tax rate for the local district up to a limit. Just like the county commission. It is stupid for Tallahassee to dictate the local millage rate and how the money can be spent.
If Mark Davis is a tax and spend democrat maybe we need more tax and spend democrats.

ADA and Title 9 are both pretty good laws IMO.

At first glance I thought spending 6 million dollars on a football field for high school was crazy, but ADA and Title 9 are federal laws and non-compliance would be even more expensive. What we need to do is fight to repeal these intrusive laws that force local governments into such spending.
I am glad the ballot initiative passed but think it is crazy to require such a vote. The local school board should have complete control over the tax rate for the local district up to a limit. Just like the county commission. It is stupid for Tallahassee to dictate the local millage rate and how the money can be spent.
If Mark Davis is a tax and spend democrat maybe we need more tax and spend democrats.

ADA and Title 9 serve a purpose so I would not want to see them totally repealed.

I believe the millage thing was set up to keep districts from spending all their dollars in operational, ignoring buildings, then trying to go to the legislature to get additional capital dollars.

At first glance I thought spending 6 million dollars on a football field for high school was crazy, but ADA and Title 9 are federal laws and non-compliance would be even more expensive. What we need to do is fight to repeal these intrusive laws that force local governments into such spending.

I do not think ADA should be repealled, but the cost-avoidance factor does point to the potential for abuses of ADA; I have heard of an individual in the Birmingham area who conducts drive-bys of parks and public facitlities in the various municipalities to see if they would accomodate her disability (regardless of whether she has any history of using them or intent to use them) then files ADA suits against the respective government entities. Also I remember some Dateline or 20/20 or whatever story years ago about people filing actions against the National Park Service because mountain/forest foot trails in national parks not accomodating wheel chairs. There needs to be a limit somewhere, but I don't see where implementing ADA standards to a brand new stadium would incur a significant amount of the construction cost. I can see where the drainage issues and Title 9 compliance would incur significant cost though.

I do not think ADA should be repealled, but the cost-avoidance factor does point to the potential for abuses of ADA; I have heard of an individual in the Birmingham area who conducts drive-bys of parks and public facitlities in the various municipalities to see if they would accomodate her disability (regardless of whether she has any history of using them or intent to use them) then files ADA suits against the respective government entities. Also I remember some Dateline or 20/20 or whatever story years ago about people filing actions against the National Park Service because mountain/forest foot trails in national parks not accomodating wheel chairs. There needs to be a limit somewhere, but I don't see where implementing ADA standards to a brand new stadium would incur a significant amount of the construction cost. I can see where the drainage issues and Title 9 compliance would incur significant cost though.

Thanks to all who voted for the referendum. The passage of the referendum makes this year's budget process much less painful.

I wanted to chime in about the outdoor athletic facilities project at Walton High School. We are not building a new stadium. The old stadium will be be remodeled to make both the home and visitor's bleachers available to those in wheel chairs. The press box will be expanded primarily to make it wheel chair available. The backs of the stadiums will be covered to allow storage, below the press box offices, dressing rooms for baseball (it is adjacent to the baseball field) will be constructed and there will be some cosmetic improvements such as some brick added. The current concession stand will be expanded to include bathrooms. That concession stand will be used by both football and baseball (middle and high school). The old ticket office and bathrooms will be torn down. We could not modify them because they sit so close to the track that we would have to move the track to make those old bathrooms available to wheel chairs. A small ticket office will be reconstructed. Lastly, the track will have to be fixed to make it available for competition. Currently, they are not supposed to be using it for meets. Lastly, the football field may have to be re-irrigated. That will mean new sod, probably. There are problems with that system that we cannot continue to fix. That is not final yet however.

The current baseball concession stand and bathrooms will be torn down. Again, they will share that facility with the expanded football concession and new bathrooms. The softball field's bathrooms will be made ADA compliant and we will need to build a parking lot out there as part of the drainage improvements.

Most of the new construction costs centers on the press box, believe it or not, because, it must have an elevator to it.

The Title 9 issues will be solved with some additions to the old fieldhouse. And, because of the new construction to the old pressbox, we are losing our vehicle access to the old fieldhouse. We are going to build a new access through the new softball parking lot. That will help with some of the drainage issues as well.

Lastly, we are buidling a small area behind the old high school for a band and soccer practice field.

There are some other small cosmetic additions, such as vegetation screening and fencing in the plan.

Anyway, just wanted to let folks know that we are not building a new stadium, just updating the old one.

The good news is that through a kind private donation, the baseball and softball fields were resodded and irrigated a couple of years ago.

I am hopeful that once the bids go out that the costs will be less than what have previously budgeted.

And, sadly there are some improvements that will need to be made a Freeport and South Walton High that are similar, just not nearly as extensive.

We have put these off for too long. The ADA stuff it getting to the critical stage. Again, if we have to sacrifice this project for another year or two to build any needed classrooms, we will do so. But, it is my opinion that we will not have to do so.

Thanks again guys.