Mason school levy at risk, supporters say

Oct. 31, 1998

Gazette Online

By Tara Tuckwiller
STAFF WRITER

For the first time in 50 years, Mason countians are worried their school levy is in trouble.
Green-and-yellow signs flutter from front porches in Point Pleasant, urging passers-by to vote "Yes for our School Levy." Volunteers have bustled from church meetings to phone banks to levy rallies for the past two months, trying to save the $20 million levy.
After three years of fighting over school consolidation, voters are wary of anything school-related, levy supporters fear. They flocked to the polls in May to elect a new, anti-consolidation school board, after the old board voted to close the county's high schools and build one consolidated school north of Point Pleasant.
Consolidation has split the county, but levy supporters hope it won't kill the levy Nov. 3.
"With all the frustration and hot tempers from the election and consolidation, I still think people will support the levy," said Jim Casey, a Point Pleasant lawyer and head of the Vote Yes Committee.
For the next five years, the levy would provide $4.3 million annually for salaries, textbooks, classroom equipment, construction and utilities. Everything is spelled out to ease voters' minds, school board member Shirley Gue said.
"It's much more detailed than the last levy," Gue said. "Unfortunately, a lot of the language before was rather vague. It caused a lot of questions."
Specifically, Gue said, people thought the old levy was just a clever way of raising money for consolidated schools. The new levy does set aside money for construction, but it also provides money for maintenance.
"This money will be used to support our current schools, not used toward consolidation," Gue said.
Casey, who has two elementary-age children, said people have told him different reasons they oppose the levy. Some are angry because the county might lose $14 million the state provided for consolidation, now that the new school board is in office. Others don't think the levy should include money for teachers' salaries.
"Another issue was the superintendent's pay raise," Casey said, referring to a $17,000 per year increase awarded to Superintendent Larry Parsons by the previous school board. "Even if we defeated the excess levy, he's still under contract. He's still going to get that money. And I think he's doing a pretty good job."
Without the levy, $4 million would be cut from the school system's $30 million budget. Teachers' salaries might be cut, Gue said. So could the budgets for computers, field trips and coaches' pay.
The levy won't cost taxpayers anything new, Casey said. On a $60,000 house, the levy means about $140 in taxes per year.
"It's a can of pop a day or a movie rental a week," he said. "Are our kids worth the extra $50 a month?"
If the levy fails, the school board would probably hold a special election, Gue said. That would cost taxpayers another $30,000 to $40,000.
The biggest chunk of the levy, $1.4 million, would be earmarked for buildings - $500,000 for building improvements, $200,000 for maintenance and $700,000 for utilities.
Salaries for professional, service and extracurricular personnel would take up $1.1 million a year. Almost $1 million would go toward classroom and library supplies and equipment.
The rest of the school levy would be used for textbooks, paper, office expenses, field trips, extracurricular activities and computers. The levy would also provide $90,000 a year for the county health department and $15,500 each for the county library system and the Cooperative Extension Service.
Darlena Long, a member of the library board and the levy committee, said she has never seen Mason County so concerned over a levy.
"I think it'll pass," Long said. "People just need to understand. This has nothing to do with consolidation."

To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, call 348-5189.

Mason consolidation plan gets OK

But parents who oppose combining three high schools vow to block proposalMarch 31, 1998

By Tara Tuckwiller
Gazette Online

POINT PLEASANT - Mason County school officials got state permission Monday to close the county's three high schools and build a new school north of Point Pleasant, but many of the 120 residents who attended a public hearing on the closings said they won't stand for it.
"Here we go again," said Hannan parent Shirley Gue, who has led an anti-consolidation group in the county for three years. "The people of Mason County have said it a hundred times, but for the record, I will say it again. We do not want one high school in Mason County."
Twenty-one parents from Gue's group, which calls itself "Mason County Kids First," filed a lawsuit against the county school board last week in Mason circuit court, seeking an injunction against the consolidated school plan. They allege that board members are violating the 1997 agreement that settled the county's last anti-consolidation lawsuit by not following certain procedures, such as updating bus schedules, before they proposed consolidation again.
Board members want to close Hannan, Wahama and Point Pleasant high schools and build a $19 million, 1,400-student consolidated school about two miles north of Point Pleasant. Residents have repeatedly stalled the county's attempts to consolidate since the state School Building Authority granted $14.4 million for a consolidated high school three years ago.
"We basically heard from the SBA today that if we don't move ahead on this project, it's a dead duck," board member Mary Beth Carlisle said at Monday night's public hearing. "We can't let the people vote on it, and we can't use the money for anything we want. That's a fallacy."
Residents who spoke at the hearing said Mason County is too big for one high school, and they would like to see at least two high schools stay open. School officials since September have been planning a regional high school that would serve 750 students from Mason and Putnam counties.
Parsons and other county officials got permission from the state School Building Authority on Monday to move their planned consolidated high school from a plot the county owns near Point Pleasant High School to a bigger plot outside town, which would cost an estimated $650,000. The authority approved the site change on the condition that the school would serve all Mason County students, Parsons said.
That would seem to rule out a regional high school, but Parsons said it is still a possibility.
"We have reason to remain optimistic about that," he said.
Cindy Ball, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she would send her daughter Jennifer to private school in Huntington before she would let the school board bus her from Hannan to a consolidated high school at Point Pleasant.
"A lot of parents in Mason County work in Huntington," Ball said. "I do, and if my daughter got sick I would be 100 miles away from her. I couldn't pick her up."
The consolidated high school could be finished within three years, Parsons said. Board members will vote on closing the three high schools at their April 7 meeting.
As for the $4 million difference between the cost of the new school and the money Mason County has in hand, Parsons said he's not sure where that will come from.
"We need to look at a variety of sources on that," he said.
If Mason County doesn't start building a consolidated school by next March, the county will have to give up the money, reapply and compete against other counties for funds again, the Authority said Monday.
Putnam County schools Superintendent Sam Sentelle said officials there will continue planning the regional high school.

Estimate for Mason school hits $27 million

Dec. 19, 1998
Gazette Online

By Tara Tuckwiller
STAFF WRITER

With the deadline for a Mason County consolidated high school looming three months away, a new price estimate shows that the school will cost almost double the original $14.4 million allocated by the state.
The new estimate, prepared by ZMM Inc. architects, indicates that a 1,400-student high school north of Point Pleasant would cost $27.4 million to build today. That price includes $4.8 million worth of expenses the state School Building Authority does not traditionally fund, such as land and athletic facilities.
Opinions differ among Mason County school board members as to why the cost has increased since the consolidation plan was funded in 1996. Members also are divided over whether Mason County can somehow keep the $14.4 million, even if the county doesn't build a consolidated school.
Jo Hannah Rorrer is part of a board minority that has favored the consolidated high school. Some people in Mason County say they want to abandon the consolidation plan, keep the money anyway and use it to fix up Hannan, Wahama and Point Pleasant high schools.
Rorrer said she doesn't see how that would work.
"The contract with the School Building Authority is to build one high school," Rorrer said. "It seems to me that if we don't do that, they can take it back from us."
The cost of the school has increased because consolidation foes have been stalling the plan for years, she said. Now, the School Building Authority has started making other plans for the $14.4 million.
"It's crunch time now," Rorrer said. "I'd just hope for everybody to take a real good look at what we're about to lose, before that deadline hits."
Shirley Gue, part of the board majority that was elected on an anti-consolidation platform, said she doesn't plan to give up the $14.4 million. She doesn't plan to vote for one county high school, either.
Gue maintains that the money belongs to Mason County, not the School Building Authority. The money was part of a $33 million appropriation that Sen. Oshel Craigo, who represents Mason County, included in a budget bill after the authority failed to fund Mason County's consolidation project. The $33 million was split among Mason, Monroe, Hampshire and Jefferson counties.
"There are legal questions surrounding this money," said Gue, who was involved in anti-consolidation lawsuits before she was elected in May. "Does the SBA have the freedom to disburse this money to other counties, when it was earmarked for Mason County by the Legislature?"
Gue said she asked for the new cost estimate because she never believed the consolidated school could be built for $14.4 million.
"It was never accurate to begin with," Gue said. "I'm not an economist, but I'm sure there's no way a $14 million project could become a $27 million project within a two-year period."
Not normally, said Clacy Williams, executive director of the School Building Authority.
"With a normal inflation rate, $14.4 million might turn into $18 million," he said.
Usually, school cost estimates come in a little over budget, Williams said. The authority then works with the county to trim off a few extras. If the pared-down project still needs more money, the authority can usually come up with that.
"I think the biggest increase we've ever seen has been half a million," he said. "Not $10 million."
Mason County could probably trim some of its project costs, Rorrer said.
"You might have to go to the taxpayers for some of it. The School Building Authority might help out with some of it. You might have to do without some of the extras for a while," she said.
The important thing, she said, is to get the project started before the authority yanks the money.
"I'm not a big gambler," she said. "I want somebody to tell me what we can do if we don't do this. Something safe. Something that's not gambling with $14 million."
The School Building Authority has a short list of projects ready for the $14.4 million, Williams said. They include renovation projects in Greenbrier, Pleasants, Monongalia, Braxton, Barbour, Roane, Webster and Raleigh counties.
Also on the list are a $6.3 million middle school for Petersburg in Grant County; a $4 million intermediate school for Martinsburg in Berkeley County; and a $15 million West Wyoming County high school, which would consolidate Oceana and Baileysville high schools.
"It's our board's intention to redistribute the funds immediately," Williams said.
Whether or not the consolidated school is ever built, the new cost estimate at least allows taxpayers to know what they're getting, Gue said.
"If we were to start one high school and potentially take the county into deficit, I would want to know that," she said. "If we were not to start one high school, I would want people to know whether they could have actually had a state-of-the-art high school for $14.4 million, with no local tax increase."

To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, call 348-5189.