The money would come from the state School Construction Aid Act.
By: Jeff Milgram
MONTGOMERY – The state has waived its requirement for a local five-year facilities plan and would pitch in $15.6 million to help pay for the proposed $70 million high school project.
The Montgomery Township School District was notified of the two actions Friday, district Business Administrator James Strimple said Monday.
The requirement for a facilities plan is contained in the $8.6 billion state School Construction Aid Act. If the state had forced the district to come up with the plan, it almost certainly would have delayed the Oct. 3 bond referendum for the school, officials have said.
The plan would include the district’s long-term solution to overcrowding. The district asked for a waiver because the referendum was approved by the Montgomery Township Board of Education before the school construction aid legislation was passed and signed by Gov. Christie Whitman.
The $15.6 million falls in the middle of two earlier estimates. In the mid-August, the school board received an analysis predicting the state might chip in $10 million. Two weeks later, Mr. Strimple offered an estimate of $18.6 million with a possible additional allocation of $627,000.
Mr. Strimple said the final figure was determined on a straight-forward formula that multiplies the 1,800 students at the proposed school by the allotted 151 square feet for each by $138 in construction costs, which comes to $37 million. The state provides approximately 40 percent of that amount.
The bond referendum asks voter approval for three proposals: $66.5 million for the new high school at the property formerly occupied by the Lloyd McCorkle Training School, including land acquisition and refurbishing existing buildings on the site; $630,000 for tennis courts and a track at the new school; and $3.1 million for an indoor swimming pool.
The state aid will cut the local tax impact of the referenda. If all three questions are approved, the owner of a home assessed at the township average of $295,000 will pay about $334 more a year over the 30-year life of the bonds, Mr. Strimple said. Without the state aid, the school project cost would have been $436, he said.
If only the high school proposal is approved, the additional tax would be $311, Mr. Strimple said. The impact of the other proposals is a combined $23 a year, according to a flier that will go to all township voters.
The school district held a press conference Monday to explain why the referendum is necessary. Interim Superintendent Thomas Butler said the school board’s building plans are "conservative."
"They erred on the conservative side rather than overbuilding," he said. "There was a great deal of debate on the board level."
Over the 30-year life of the bonds, the school will cost $106.3 million in principal and interest, Mr. Strimple said.
What is clear from district enrollment figures is that Montgomery Township schools are over or near capacity.
"Since 1991, the student population in Montgomery Township has grown 131 percent," according to a special Montgomery Township School District Referendum Bulletin. "The official enrollment in 1991 was 1,526 students, and as of October 1999 that population had grown to 3,521 students. As school doors open this September, there are nearly 3,900 students.
"Recent projections (based on land available for building and turnover of existing homes) show that the district will have 6,000 students in the 2005-2006 school year," the bulletin added.
Dr. Butler said six trailers will be installed at the Middle School and eight trailers will be placed at the existing high school next year.
If the referendum is approved, construction of the new 1,800-student high school would begin this school year. The school is expected to be completed by the fall of 2003.
Dr. Butler said the school would be at capacity in the 2006-2007 school year. The current high school would become a fifth- and sixth-grade school.
Dr. Butler said he has heard no public criticism or opposition to the referendum, although he has heard a question about why a football field was included in the first referendum question.
The district has had good results getting budgets approved. But only one of three building referenda that have gone before voters in the last 15 years – the $34 million plan to build the Middle School and add science labs to the high school – has been approved, Mr. Strimple said.
In the early 1990s, a referendum to spend $14 million to build an addition to the high school was defeated. Another proposal, in 1996, to spend $10 million to add a second floor to the middle school, also was turned down by voters.
When asked what the board will do if the high school proposal is defeated, Dr. Butler answered, "The board and administration would sit down and assess why voters didn’t support it." And then, he said, the board would probably ask voters to approve a smaller proposal.
"What is it we need to maintain excellence in education?" Dr. Butler asked. "What is it we need to spend to do our job?"
Information on the referendum will be made available at back-to-school nights, which are being held this week and next, and there will be a presentation at the school board’s meeting at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 25 in the High School Media Center.
The district’s Web site, www.mtsd.k12.nj.us, also contains information, and the district has established a hot line to answer referendum questions at (908) 431-2239.