School plans for operations, upgrades depend on 2 levies

By Sanjay Bhatt
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Martin Floe has spent most of his life at Ingraham High School, first as a student who played tuba, then as band teacher and now as vice principal.

He's changed since graduating in 1984, but the auditorium's beige curtains haven't.

"Before each concert, I would staple the curtains together to make them presentable," said Floe, 38, recounting his days as the school's band director. "If you tried to sew them, they would fall apart."

Ingraham High's tattered stage curtains, missing window coverings, leaky roof and moldy carpets could be fixed if city voters approve the capital levy on the Feb. 3 ballot. Officials said the six-year levy would raise $178 million to pay for nearly 700 projects, including new roofs, plumbing repairs and central-office computer systems that were recommended by the consultants who investigated last year's major budget errors. Seattle voters also will be asked to OK an operations levy. The three-year, $338 million operations levy provides 23 percent of the district's annual operating budget.

There is scattered opposition, although nothing organized, to the capital levy and no organized opposition to the operations levy.

Both propositions are renewals of existing levies. If they are approved, the owner of a $336,000 home — the average residence value in Seattle last year — would have a total schools-tax bill of about $769 in 2005, which includes a previously approved new-school-construction levy.

Turnout is expected to be light because the school levies are the only measures on the ballot, said King County Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens.

A 60 percent majority is required for passage, and at least 40 percent of those who voted in November's general election must cast ballots.

Historically, operations levies for Seattle's public schools have fared better at the polls than capital tax measures, although voters generally have been willing to support the district. Voters rejected an operations levy in 1975, which led to huge layoffs and caused trauma that some say the district still hasn't overcome. (While an operations levy failed in 1996, voters overwhelmingly passed it six weeks later.)

By contrast, Seattle voters turned down capital bond measures four times from 1992 onward before approving a scaled-down capital levy in 1995. And a $75 million technology capital levy failed in 1996.

District officials blame those failures in the early 1990s on delays in the construction schedule and controversial decisions on what repairs could be postponed.

For example, administrators chose to delay replacing lead-leaching water pipes at four schools, including Wedgwood Elementary, because managers believed that simply flushing drinking fountains would be a suitable interim solution, maintenance manager Ed Heller told Wedgwood parents this week. But officials never checked to see that school staffs were running the fountains for several minutes to flush out lead, which can harm a child's brain development.

"We have divvied our resources so thin that we can't do a good job no matter how hard we try," Heller said, after apologizing to angry parents for the deferred repairs.

Schools are being provided with bottled water until the district can test the water in all its schools and devise a permanent solution. To pay for safer water, the School Board may have to take money from other capital projects. But none of it will be possible if the capital levy fails.

"I think that passing the capital levy is imperative to ensure a safe and secure learning environment," said Ingraham High's Floe.

In 1998, Seattle voters approved a $150 million capital levy, known formally as "Buildings, Technology and Athletics," that expires this year. It paid for more than 465 projects, such as giving every employee an e-mail address, wiring each classroom for Internet access and phone service, creating five athletic facilities and replacing school roofs.

About half the revenue raised by this year's BTA levy (Proposition 2) would pay for building maintenance, while the rest would be split between computer systems and academic spaces, such as libraries, science labs and auditoriums.

These investments would give four Seattle high schools — Nathan Hale, Ingraham, Rainier Beach and Chief Sealth — money to create collaborative learning spaces, community spaces and schools within schools, all elements of their plans to reform education.

But the capital levy also would benefit all 103 of the Seattle district's schools and buildings, which have an average age of 40 years. About $4 million from the proposed capital levy is earmarked to carry out recommendations made by Moss Adams Advisory Services following last year's financial crisis. These projects include upgrading central financial systems to give budget managers more timely and accurate information.

Support for the Seattle district eroded sharply in the 2002-03 school year, when the superintendent's office acknowledged a budget deficit of about $35 million, the result of sloppy accounting and poor oversight. Then the district's months-long search for a new superintendent ended with all four finalists withdrawing. Voters ousted three incumbents in November's election, but it's unclear whether public anger is smoldering.

Even if voters approve the operations levy, the district will have to close a $9 million shortfall in its $437 million, 2004-05 spending plan. As a result, the School Board is considering using interest from the capital levy to get through the next year.

District officials said state law allows them to spend the interest on instructional supplies, equipment and building maintenance; historically, the interest has been used to support school construction and cover cost overruns.

Chris Jackins, a frequent critic of district policies, and retired Garfield High Principal Roscoe Bass are among the few prominent voices opposed to renewing the capital levy. Jackins wanted a citizen-review committee appointed before the district released money for several school construction projects. He said district officials have not given a full accounting of cost overruns on some projects.

While he supports the newly elected School Board directors, he thinks they'll have difficulty sorting out the lengthy project schedule. "There's a lot of pressure to go along with the flow," Jackins said. "There's a lot of people who want to keep things going the way they've been going."

"This is one of the best-run capital programs, (either) public or private," said Superintendent Raj Manhas. Cost overruns on the Building Excellence I program were only about 1 percent of a $380 million program and were mainly due to fire and earthquake damage, he said.

Some other capital costs, such as the new John Stanford Center headquarters that critics like Jackins have disparaged, were wise investments that will reduce inefficiencies and benefit future generations, Manhas said.

Sanjay Bhatt: 206-464-3103 or sbhatt@seattletimes.com

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