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Chamber Board Cites Safety, Facilities and Technology to Adequately Prepare Students

The Farmington Chamber of Commerce board of directors approved unanimously Thursday, Feb. 2, a resolution in support of Proposition KIDS (Keep Improving District Schools), the $17 million, no-tax-increase bond issue on the ballot before voters in the April 3 election.

Following tours of district facilities, review of financial information and discussion about the impact of education on the business community and workforce, Chairman Mary McEntire believes that the board’s decision was very important to the mission of the Farmington Chamber.

“Education is one of the most impactful elements of a strong community, and when time-sensitive improvements need to be made to ensure students have an environment with basic learning necessities, it’s important that we step up with support,” McEntire said.

Five members of the Farmington Board of Education were in attendance at the meeting to show support for the initiative.

“I am hopeful voters will see the bond issue as an opportunity to make an essential investment in our students and community,” said Angie Hahn, a member of the board of education.

McEntire said that the board’s review of the issue was very detailed because of the complexity of educational finance, but that adequately maintained and safe educational facilities were the primary reasons that lead the board to its decision.

“As with any decision where we consider supporting a community issue, information gathering is hugely important,” McEntire said. “Our government affairs committee did initial research, meeting with district representatives and even set up tours for our directors to see first-hand the areas in the schools to be addressed with the funding proposal.”

Becky Thompson, a member of the chamber’s board who also toured facilities, cited safety as one of her primary reasons for supporting the resolution.

“It’s important that kids are safe,” Thompson said. “Having younger children myself, things like security systems at the entry of buildings, facilities where teachers don’t have to transport children down narrow staircases for activities, and science labs that are up to code become so much more important.”

Michelle Smith, also a chamber board member, said she noticed on the tour that teachers and staff were making the most out of bright, clean facilities, but acknowledged that facilities at a number of district buildings cannot be easy to teach in because of their limitations.

“I was so impressed with the passion of the teachers and staff,” Smith said. “To see what they’ve been able to do academically with such limited resources really says a lot about their dedication to students and willingness to be creative.”

Executive Director of Secondary Education and High School Principal Matt Ruble said the district’s parents and educators in all subjects are the greatest influence on students’ educational achievement, but acknowledged that overcrowded facilities and outdated science laboratories make that job more difficult.

Projects to be addressed in the bond issue include district-wide critical repairs and renovations, safety and security upgrades, bus replacement, some classroom improvements and improvements to technology in all buildings, which includes providing wireless access. It would also pay for a new Early Childhood Center, additional and well-equipped space for science education at Farmington High School, and a new building on the high school campus that would house band and choir instructional areas as well as a gymnasium.

Ruble said the gymnasium was designed in 1959 at a time when the high school served 600 students, but now poses a challenge to providing state-mandated physical education for the high school’s more than 1,200 students.

“I know the addition of a gymnasium can be a really sensitive issue, but to see more than 100 students having to share one gymnasium for the same class period really shows the need for a second space,” Ruble said.

Ruble said that other departments are feeling the squeeze as well.

“Our band regularly has more than 120 participants and they simply can’t fit well into a room built for a max capacity of 90,” Ruble said.

Shirley Bieser, principal at Truman Kindergarten and W.L. Johns Early Childhood Center, said that the proposed creation of an early childhood and kindergarten campus behind the existing Truman Kindergarten along with the repurposing of the W. L. Johns building will provide a very strategic fix to overcrowding and creates a better transition for our children.

“In its day, the W. L. Johns building, one of the oldest in the district, was sufficient. But today, there is no space to grow our early childhood,” Bieser said.

Bieser said that the district strives to provide early intervention to special needs students before kindergarten which significantly improves their academic performance throughout their school careers, but at this time, it can only serve 140-160 students, which is less than half of the students that will enter into kindergarten. In addition, she said that there is continual waiting list for services and added that with an expected rise in kindergarten enrollment next year, Truman Kindergarten will also be out of space.

“Early intervention is the key to success,” Bieser said.

Critical capital improvement needs that now comprise Proposition KIDS were identified earlier this year by committees at each school comprised of staff members, parents, community members and students.

Chamber CEO Doug McDermott said the approach the organization’s board took is reflective of their diverse backgrounds and focus on community improvement.

“An endorsement from a chamber of commerce is extremely strong because it represents so many opinions and backgrounds,” McDermott said. “Our directors’ ability as a group to separate emotion and competing agendas from a proposal and to then vote on its merits alone shows their character and integrity.”

“When you start talking about schools and kids, it brings up a whole host of emotional issues, many times based on people’s personal connection to the district through their children, interest in arts or athletics, or through friends who work there,” McDermott said.

“But for the Farmington Chamber of Commerce, as an organization, we have to separate from those issues and look very basically at the state of the district, the merits of the proposal, the ability of the district’s leadership to deal with challenges facing them now, and their ability to create a long-term plan to address those challenges the best way possible on behalf of students and tax-payers.”

“This resolution signifies the Chamber’s confidence that regardless of past bond issues or personal desires, the plan presented is the best way to ensure a quality education, steward tax dollars, and lay the ground work for a stronger workforce and economy for our community,” McDermott said.

Current Board of Education President David Buerck said he appreciates the chamber’s support.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about who’s on the school board or who is serving on the administrative team. It’s about whether or not the district as a whole is serving students at the highest possible level,” Buerck said. “Passage of this bond issue will help us better do that.”

Buerck said that the school board has recently implemented programs to strengthen its financial accountability and ensure for voters that projects proposed in the ballot language will be completed in a timely manner and funding managed ethically and transparently.

In addition to reviewing methods of construction management, the board of education will now require long range planning for transportation, technology and facility maintenance to be approved annually with subsequent budgeting for those items.

Transparency and financing issues were a heavy consideration according to Phil Brockland, a member of the chamber’s government affairs committee.

“When you start talking debt levies and bond rates, it gets pretty complex, especially for people not involved in finance” Brockland said. “But when we saw evidence that without this bond issue, the district would have to make significant cuts in operational funding just to ensure they can operate and keep roofs from leaking, there was no choice but to support the initiative.”

Brockland said that as a business person, his first concern was using long-term financing to pay for items with short-term life spans, like computers and busses.

“That was my first question, for sure, but when you look at the basic critical needs and the unfunded mandates the government puts on education, financing is the only option,” Brockland said. “But after hearing about the district’s plan to stagger the bonds and utilize them to get the best rates possible and ensure long-range planning for future maintenance and technology needs, I was much more comfortable supporting their plan.”

Superintendent Dr. Natalie Thomas said the district’s debt service, which is the portion of the total tax rate that pays off bonds, remained the same for about 10 years, but that it assumed a 4 percent growth rate. With the significant economic downturn in 2008 that caused the annual growth rate to decline, revenue forecasted from property taxes to pay bills significantly decreased.

“When we reset the levy last year, we wanted to be realistic so we could make good decisions,” Thomas said. “We used zero growth projections for the next three years followed by 2 percent for two years before returning to the 4 percent level in the 2017-18 school year, to make sure we didn’t over budget what we couldn’t pay for.”

Don Eaton, director of business services, said that the board’s policy, which developed based on Governmental Accounting Standard Board policy, states that the district should maintain minimum operating fund balances, or reserves, of 15 percent of its operating expenditures.

“This allows the District to maintain sufficient financial reserves to provide for prudent financial management and for adequacy of cash flow to support operations,” Eaton said. “These reserve balances are extremely important in times like these, when state formula funding is less than 100 percent.”

Although the Missouri State Auditor allowed a $0.9278 debt service rate for the 2011-12 school year without separate voter approval, the district’s board of education, in consultation with the district’s bond underwriter and administration, raised it to $0.90 to restore debt service fund balances to acceptable levels and sufficient to meet future building needs.

The $.90 debt service rate puts Farmington R-VII School District as the 18th lowest of the 20 school districts in St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve, Jefferson and Madison Counties.

The proposition on the April 3 ballot requires a 4/7 majority for passage.

The mission of the Farmington Chamber of Commerce is to foster business success, improve the economic environment and enhance the quality of life of the Farmington area. For more information on the Farmington Chamber of Commerce or to read the adopted resolution, visit farmingtonmo.org. For more information on Proposition KIDS, visit farmington.k12.mo.us.