opinion
may4
2017
3
An Opinion: Why I Support the School Bond
By Scott Laird
“Education is simply the soul of a soci-
ety as it passes from one generation to
another.”
—G. K. Chesterton
Since 2007 the administrators
and staff at the Vernonia School Dis-
trict have been operating in crisis mode,
scrambling to meet both the financial
and educational needs of their District,
the community, and our students.
Today we, the Vernonia voters,
have an opportunity to toss our School
District a lifeline and step up to meet an
important community need - something
Vernonians have a well known history of
doing in the past.
Vernonia voters are being asked
to approve a $6.8 million bond that will
pay off debt and allow the District to
begin to return to normalcy again. I am
supporting this bond because our teach-
ers and staff, and especially our students,
deserve this, and our community needs
this.
Ten years ago, when all three
schools were damaged in the 2007 flood,
the District had no plans or reserves set
aside to move the schools out of the flood
zone and District officials had to quickly
weigh their options and deal with how
and where to house and continue educat-
ing students.
FEMA was offering to buyout
the damaged campus for $12 million and
had stated they would no longer insure
the District against future flood events.
Meanwhile, experts were telling the
community that the 100 year flood that
occurred in 1996 now looked more like-
ly to repeat itself about once a decade.
With that information the Dis-
trict made a difficult and risky choice
– construct a new K-12 campus on high
ground and pay for it by asking the com-
munity to pass a $13 million bond, ac-
cept the FEMA offer of $12 million,
which contained a clause that students
needed to be in a new building within
five years, and roll the dice and hope
they could raise the estimated balance of
$12 million.
Voters overwhelmingly ap-
proved that $13 million bond in 2009,
FEMA came through with their $12 mil-
lion buyout, and fundraising commenced
for the balance, even while construction
planning was already under way and
progressing.
In the end, the fundraising fell
short, while costs on the massive project
increased. In order to complete the proj-
ect on schedule and meet FEMA’s five
year deadline, the District had to make
cuts to the initial plans and borrow $5
million to finish the project.
The beautiful new school did
open in the fall of 2012, on schedule,
which has to be seen as a huge and he-
roic success. The community rallied to-
gether to put their children first and con-
structed a new facility that will serve the
community for the next century.
The downside of the story is
that now the District is operating on the
edge of a precipice. The debt service on
the loans the District took to complete
construction has been paid for mostly
through ongoing fundraising efforts,
which has slowly dried up and disap-
peared. The annual $450,000 debt pay-
ment will now start coming from the
District’s General Fund and will require
additional cuts to teachers, staff, school
days, and programs.
While some of the choices made
by the Administration following an un-
expected natural disaster could be ques-
tioned, I believe the District did what
they thought would be best for the stu-
dents and necessary for the community
at the time.
Now a difficult decision falls on
the community: step up and support the
District with an additional bond, or turn
their backs on our students, teachers and
staff. For me, it’s a no-brainer.
The ask from the District is
small - just 20 cents per $1,000 of as-
sessed value, which equates to about
$20-$40 a year or $2 to $3 a month, for
most homes in the voting District. Pay-
ing off the debt will allow the District
to begin the process of fully recovering
from the financial crisis they have been
dealing with for the past decade and be-
gin rebuilding programs and staff levels.
The extra money, $2.3 million
over and above the $4.5 million of debt,
will be matched by the state; it is on the
table and will go to another District if
Vernonia does not pass the bond, which
is exactly what happened in November.
Those extra funds will allow the District
to add needed classrooms and complete
the new campus and make repairs and
upgrades at the aging Mist School.
What happens if the commu-
nity fails to pass the bond? While this
is mostly speculative, what is for sure
is that the District, already struggling to
make ends meet, will be forced to make
some very difficult and painful cuts.
The school will almost assuredly lose
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teaching positions and aides, class sizes
will almost surely increase, the already
small choice of electives will be fur-
ther reduced, and some extracurricular
activities will likely be eliminated. It’s
pretty easy to begin imagining school
classrooms with 40 or more students,
no middle school sports programs, and
no foreign language studies or other
electives.
While Vernonia has recently
been experiencing a strong growth
spurt, which helps us all when our util-
ity rates are spread among more house-
holds, given the above scenario, it will
not be surprising if families start choos-
ing to not relocate here, move away, or
place their students in private schools,
while the families that do not have those
options, or choose to stay, will be left
with less resources. Since the District
receives funding for their operations
from the state based on enrollment, fur-
ther reductions will lead to more cuts in
the budget and more reductions in staff
and programs. It will likely become a
downward spiral.
An underfunded school dis-
trict is not a good recipe for a vibrant
community and is not a place where
businesses and families will choose to
start or locate. Since the 2007 flood
this community has been able to relo-
cate their schools, health center, electric
utility headquarters, and the new Senior
Center/Food Bank will break ground
this fall, plus we raised or moved ap-
proximately 80 households above the
food level. All that in 10 years!
The final piece to the flood re-
covery story for Vernonia is to pay off
the debt from the school.
While the state of Oregon con-
tinues to underfund public education,
this bond is a chance for Vernonia to
make education a priority and take care
of itself and our children.
This community has proven
time and again that they care, are up to
the challenge, and will do what it takes
to survive. This bond is just one more
opportunity.
“There is a place in America to take a
stand: it is public education. It is the un-
derpinning of our cultural and political
system. It is the great common ground.
Public education after all is the engine
that moves us as a society toward a com-
mon destiny... It is in public education
that the American dream begins to take
shape.”
—Tom Brokaw
Publisher and Managing Editor
Scott Laird
503-367-0098
scott@vernoniasvoice.com
Contributors
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Kailia Jackson
Stacey Lynn
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Scott Laird
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