WICHITA, Kansas — Wichita school district leaders are asking members of a financial oversight committee to recommend a new bond issue.
An agenda for the financial oversight group, which meets Wednesday, recommends “that the committee make a recommendation for a bond resolution to go before the Wichita … Board of Education” at its meeting July 7.
The scale of a revised bond proposal is still unclear. Board members could ask for a vote in November or on a special election ballot next March.
Earlier this year, voters narrowly rejected a $450 million bond issue to rebuild and repair Wichita's school facilities. Since then, the state’s largest district has been searching for a plan to address aging buildings and declining enrollment.
District leaders formed the financial oversight committee in response to the failed bond issue.
Last month, members were directed to gauge community sentiment on several alternative bond plans.
The proposals included a $480 million bond similar to the rejected ballot measure. Other possibilities were a $400 million plan with a 15-year payoff and a $390 million bond that would require a lower mill levy.
The financial oversight committee has not met to share or talk about its findings. That discussion is slated for Wednesday’s meeting, just before the proposed action item on recommending a bond issue.
According to the agenda, the group will also be asked to “advise the district to transfer one-time year-end budget savings to contingency reserves or capital outlay.”
At a previous meeting, school district leaders proposed doing away with the term “deferred maintenance,” saying a change of wording could persuade more voters to approve a bond issue for upgraded school buildings.
Addi Lowell, the district’s chief financial officer, said voters might assume deferred maintenance means the district has not cared for its facilities. She compared Wichita’s aging schools to cars that require major repairs.
“It’s not because we haven’t taken care of that vehicle. It’s just because the vehicle is that old, it’s at the end of life, and we need to be financially planning to either buy a new car or replace the transmission,” Lowell said.
The oversight group spent more than an hour considering terms such as “facility lifecycle plan” and “essential facility priorities,” but did not decide on a specific change.
The 24-member financial oversight committee is chaired by Deputy Superintendent Gil Alvarez and facilitated by Lowell.
The group includes board members, school principals, parents, community members and students, but no teachers, which has been a point of contention with the local teachers union.
“Fiscal transparency is essential, but the current financial oversight committee has left many stakeholders uneasy, and for good reason,” said Michael Harris, vice president of United Teachers of Wichita. “It’s missing a classroom perspective.”
Harris said board members and community members “have openly questioned processes … wondering aloud how the committee could weigh resource tradeoffs without daily classroom insight.”
Wednesday’s meeting is the third time the financial oversight committee has convened, and it could be its final meeting. The group has not discussed the district’s overall facility master plan, which was crafted by consultants hired by the board.
Wichita school board member Kathy Bond opposed the first bond issue. Last week, she questioned the timing of another bond while district officials are investigating grade tampering at a Wichita high school.
“To float the idea of a bond issue amid such turmoil is ill-advised,” Bond said.
Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld said Wichita schools need more than $1 billion worth of repairs and upgrades. He said the district’s plan would improve schools and make the district more efficient.
“The bond issue would not be intended to fix the graduation rate. The bond issue's intended to fix the long-range facility needs for the district,” Bielefeld said.
School board member Stan Reeser said the district needs a bond issue to fix buildings and tying it to the grade-tampering investigation is unfair and irrelevant.
“To say that you can't have a bond until every single controversy disappears is like saying you can't have any health care until we cure cancer,” Reeser said.
The district’s $450 million bond plan called for building five new elementary schools and two middle schools. It also would have built a new early childhood center, converted two elementary schools to K-8 schools, added a career center focused on construction trades, and added athletic facilities at Northeast Magnet High School.
About a year ago, Wichita shuttered six schools to help fill a $42 million budget gap.
More school closures are likely. Wichita’s facility master plan calls for closing L’Ouverture, Woodland, OK and Pleasant Valley elementary schools, regardless of the outcome of bond votes, because leaders say those buildings are inefficient and too costly to repair.
Suzanne Perez reports on education for KMUW in Wichita and the Kansas News Service.
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