I recently mentioned that our response to growth (the decisions of our Admin and Board) and not growth itself (the influx of new residents) is the reason for our current financial situation related to school taxes.
I'd advocated all along we needed a new elementary school and should have brought 6th from MS to Elem in the process. This was never considered. Instead, we opted for a new MS (we've built a ton of these - since I was in school at the current apartments between Center and Belvidere we've built the 'north campus', MS on Tatamy Road and now the new building).
Interestingly as I drove south today I noticed Southern Lehigh was building an Intermediate School.
We didn't build an Intermediate School, because we thought converting the Middle School to an Intermediate School and then building a new Middle School to create a 'complex' of HS and MS would be more beneficial.
According to this article, indexed in Topix (available here) and originated from the Morning Call, Southern Lehigh came in nearly a $o.5M under expected bid at $38.8M as opposed to our $60M.
Plus, they didn't have to retro-fit their MS to become an IS.
The simple fact is an Elem is the least expensive and a HS the most expensive, yet since we can't afford to build what we needed, a HS, we choose to keep building MS's.
It is the decisions we make, not the growth we've experienced - and now it has come time to pay the price.
No comments:
Post a Comment