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County officials have just spent $110-million on new schools. Now, as they look ahead, the need is even larger.
By KENT FISCHER
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 14, 2001
LAND O'LAKES -- The Pasco County School District, coming off a $110-million construction spree, needs an additional $158-million for new schools over the next five years, but it doesn't have nearly that much money at its disposal, school officials said.
District revenue projections predict a little more than $34-million with which to build new schools unless it borrows heavily against future revenues or the Legislature grants the School Board new authority to levy taxes, said superintendent John Long.
"It's bad, no question about it," Long said of the gap between available revenue and the need for new schools. "We always seem to be up against these kinds of deficits. We need help or we are going to have serious, serious problems."
The district has opened eight new schools since 1999 and still has the equivalent of nine elementary schools housed in 361 portable classrooms. Another new elementary will open in August, the final school being built under the district's dwindling construction plan.
The $158-million outlined in a new five-year facility study would pay for three new elementaries, two middle schools and three high schools. All of the schools would open by the 2006-07 school year, creating "stations" for 8,673 students.
The new schools, though, would do little to eliminate the district's need for portable classrooms, Long said. The new schools would simply cover student enrollment growth, which is already up 2,300 students over last school year.
Many of the new schools likely would be built along State Road 54, one of the fast-growing areas of the county. The exact locations of the eight schools -- and how many of them will actually be built -- will be determined by a new construction plan due out this spring, said Mike Rapp, the district's director of planning.
"This is all very tentative," Rapp said. "What we build probably won't be determined by what we need, but by how much money we have."
When it comes to money for new schools, the district's revenue projections look bleak.
The district expects to get $110-million for "capital outlay" projects through local property taxes over the next five years. About $34-million of that, though, will be dedicated for maintenance and renovations, while $37.5-million will go toward paying off past construction debt. Take out $15-million needed for new school buses and other vehicles and another $19-million needed for "equipment," and the district will be left with only about $5-million, not including roughly $17-million in construction aid from the state and $16-million from a new housing impact fee.
Once renovations and other maintenance projects are paid for, the district will be left with about $34-million for new school construction, the report shows. That's enough money to probably build an elementary school and a high school, Long said.
The district could borrow up to $60-million for construction, but that would leave it with virtually no bond capacity for the foreseeable future. It would also saddle the district with tremendous debt payments. The district already has borrowed about $100-million to pay for much of its latest construction spree.
"We're not an anomaly," Long said. "When superintendents get together, this is all they talk about. You'll see this in every fast-growing county in the state."