The News Tribune (Lite) - Community stands to gain from Franklin Pierce bond

TheNewsTribune.com
Section: Opinion

Community stands to gain from Franklin Pierce bond

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
The Franklin Pierce School District is, perhaps more than many of its neighboring districts, a community institution

Parkland, Summit, Waller and Midland look and feel in many ways like an urban area, but they have no city government to address their needs. The school district is the common ground, their vehicle for building a stronger community.

The school district’s bond measure reflects that unique role. In addition to doing much needed repairs and school expansion, it would help provide community-oriented services.

A little less than a third of the $78.5 million proposal would fund a school-community sports center, equip a performing arts center that a nonprofit foundation hopes to build, and partner with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Pierce County on a new preschool center, teen activity and community group space.

All three projects are grounded first in school district needs. The addition of community uses gives taxpayers extra value for their money.

The remainder of the bond money would go toward a host of more traditional school projects. Many are critical upgrades that the school district must make whether the bond passes or not. Without bond money, the district would be forced to dip into funding for academic programs and resort to stopgap measures that would cost taxpayers more in the long run.

Franklin Pierce needs 23 new classrooms to alleviate overcrowding and handle future growth, including the addition of state-funded all-day kindergarten at three schools this fall. Either the district builds permanent classrooms with bond money, or it sends students to portables that cost $150,000 a pop and won’t last nearly as long.

The district also needs to replace many of its 600 heat pumps. Either voters pass the bond and allow the district to get ahead on maintenance, or district officials will have to find thousands of dollars elsewhere in their budget to do just the bare minimum.

The May 20 election is a crucial one for Franklin Pierce. Low turnout in the March election doomed an identical bond measure, which fell far short of the 60 percent approval needed to pass. Now the district is counting on get-out-the-vote efforts to close the gap.

Tax rates on the district’s last bond, which passed in 1998, are falling. The community can choose to reinvest its money now, or it can wait until the need and cost multiplies. Franklin Pierce’s bond proposal would keep education dollars where they belong – in the classroom – and serve the larger community as well. It deserves voters’ support.