Tag Archives: Ohio School Facilities Commission

School Building Projects – Rewarding Special Interests at the Expense of Students, Teachers, and Taxpayers

Posted on September 23, 2010 by | Leave a comment

By Mary McCleary, Policy Analyst

Hiring union labor in school construction projects increases the costs period. You will be hard pressed to find an example in modern-day Ohio where hiring a labor union has led to cost savings that otherwise would have gone unrealized. By their very nature, labor unions drive up costs through paying workers higher wages than the market dictates.

Due to Senate Bill 102 passed in 1997, school districts are exempt from Ohio’s little Davis-Bacon law, which requires the government to compensate laborers at the prevailing wage rate. Essentially, this law forces workers to join unions to work on government-funded building projects. More often than not, school districts choose independent companies because they can bid projects at lower, more competitive rates than their union counterparts.

The fact that using union labor drives up school construction costs can be illustrated by three recent examples. Earlier this summer the Executive Director of the Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) Richard Murray chose to use a project labor agreement for the construction of the new deaf and blind schools in Columbus. At each of the four stages of the design process, the OSFC signed off on the cost estimates. When Murray decided to use a project labor agreement, bids for the project came back $11.4 million over the $28 million budget – a 41 percent increase in estimated costs.

Only the kitchen equipment portion of the deaf and blind schools was exempt from a project labor agreement. Ironically, the kitchen equipment bids were the only bids that came back within the allotted budget, and there were twice as many bids for kitchen equipment than there were for any other part of the project.

Second, the Washington-Niles Local School District near Portsmouth planned to use a project labor agreement at the advice of the OSFC. However, when the bids came back 22 percent over budget, the district backed out. Washington-Niles is the eighth poorest of the 612 Ohio school districts and simply could not afford such significant cost overruns.

Third, the New Boston School District, also near Portsmouth and among the poorest Ohio school districts, has accused the OSCF of increasing costs and delaying the project because the district refused to accept a project labor agreement. When the district ran into a few problems during the planning phase, Richard Murray told school board members that he would make their problems disappear if they used union labor.

Because the OSCF has added extra costs to the schools estimate to account for a project labor agreement, the project is over budget by $400,000. To reduce costs, the OSCF has demanded the removal of the proposed facility’s front area and the reduction of cafeteria size. The OSCF has put construction on hold until the district concedes and is charging the district fees for delaying the project.

Unfortunately, when a project goes over budget due to a labor agreement, the OSFC recommends reducing building size and cutting other amenities instead of finding savings through nixing the project labor agreement. Sadly it has become more important to enhance the wallets of special interest groups rather than to act in the best interest of the students, their teachers, and the taxpayers.

With Ohio’s economy in shambles, this is no time to be pushing for the use of unions in school construction projects. Between January 1990 and July 2010, job creation in states that forced workers to join unions to obtain jobs only grew by 17 percent. On the other hand, job creation in states that protected a worker’s freedom to choose whether or not to join a union to obtain employment grew by 37 percent, or more than double the rate of forced unionization states.

Ohio’s road to economic recovery will not be paved with higher taxes and will not be found through paying homage to unions. Robbing Peter to pay Paul does nothing to promote job growth or prosperity in Ohio. Try explaining to the taxpayers that they are better off by paying more for less. The logic simply does not add up.

Source: Buckeye Institute, September 6, 2010.

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Xenia Community Schools Rebuilding Plan : It’s All About the Money

Posted on October 23, 2008 by | 2 comments

By Daniel Downs

Part Three

If Xenia taxpayers want new schools or even the Under-One-Roof plan, they need to consider the costs. Xenia can change the structure of the school system and rebuild all but two new schools plus a new central office just to get the state to pay 46% ($56 million) of the total costs.
Under the new plan, the central office building, Cox, Shawnee, Simon Kenton, and South Hill school buildings will require reuse plans. The YMCA is moving whether or not voters approve of the Under-One-Roof plan. The library is considering using the YMCA to expand its services. The Senior Citizen Center is hoping to move as well. Other buildings in the downtown area requiring reuse including the old historic library located across the street from the both the Senior Citizen Center and YMCA, and the list goes on…. If these buildings will be reused for public purposes, Xenia taxpayers will have to foot the bill for any repairs or renovations. Ideally, private investors would be attracted to purchase any abandoned school buildings.

During the Xenia Community School District Forum, I suggested reusing Brenner Field House as a theater for plays and musicals. Unfortunately, the filed house was built over a garbage dump. So reusing Brenner may not such a good idea, according Robert Smith.

If all of the school buildings are going to be rebuilt per voter approval, why not build all of them on same property along with a new YMCA, Senior Citizen Center, Kettering Hospital out-patient center, and branches of several colleges. That way the elementary and middle school students would benefit from the YMCA, nearby health care, and possibly interaction with wise and caring senior citizens. It’s true project costs would be higher and busing cost would probably increase as well, but the benefits might exceed the additional costs.

As the meeting proceeded through old building reuse ideas, it dawned on me that almost all of the attendees except for maybe a half-dozen residents were past or present educators. There may have been two or three parents with children attending Cox or other Xenia schools at the forum. There were a lot of teachers present. One of them asked a pertinent question: what will happen to their jobs. What board member Bill Spahr didn’t say was that all of them would be placed in new positions at new schools.

Beyond reuse and employment issues, the bottom line is whether Xenia residents can afford a $66.5 million or more bond issue. As I pointed out in my February article titled What is the Future of Xenia Under One Roof, 62 percent of Xenia residents qualify for the hot welfare program called State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Nearly a third of Xenia residents have incomes at or below the poverty line. That leaves about 38 percent who still might be capable of handling more taxes on top of the rising costs for gas, food, and most other goods and services.

What happens if Xenia voters do not approve any rebuilding plan? Will any money still be available for renovating or rebuilding school facilities in the future? I asked the Ohio School Facilities Commission that question, but I never got a response. The tobacco securitization funds will no longer be available after 2009. After that time, a portion of any funds the General Assembly budgets for school renovation and construction will be available to deserving school districts to help fund building projects.

Maybe what Xenia needs is a very wealthy patron saint or at least a few generous patrons. If a golden giver is not available or willing, maybe Congress would be disposed to redirect some of it golden earmarked pork to Xenia to cover the cost of building new schools. It would probably be more effective than the current stimulus plan and certainly healthier than their economy-killing subsidies to the ethanol industry. If Congress doesn’t have a heart to share more of its pork with Xenia, maybe the State of Ohio would give us back our 9 cent surcharge on all of our gas and electric. It seems only fair seeing the state no longer intends to give any of it to citizens for windmills or solar energy and similar renewable energy enhancements. The state didn’t give much of it to homeowners anyway. A lot of it was redirected to cover other state programs. The question we should be asking is why renters and homeowners are subsidizing the energy industry instead of education. Let business subsidize their own growth and innovations. Of course, the problem is convincing those who represent us in the Ohio General Assembly that it is a better idea than those propositions being argued by industry lobbyists.

Originally published on April 29 in the Xenia Daily Gazette.

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Xenia Community Schools Rebuilding Plan: Why Small Schools Are Best

Posted on October 22, 2008 by | 3 comments

By Daniel Downs

Part Two

As mentioned in part one, Xenia school administrators want to rebuild four elementary schools and convert Central Middle School into another. The rationale for reducing the number of elementary schools from seven to five is based on the state’s contradictory 350 minimum enrollment rule. The state will fund neither school renovations nor new buildings with projected enrollments under 350 students. For Xenia, super-sizing our schools mean almost all 1,100 middle school students will travel by bus to what is now the high school. It also means no more neighborhood schools for families now attending Spring Hill, Simon Kenton, or Cox.

I find two additional problems with both Ohio’s 350 rule and Xenia’s rebuilding plans. The first is with the Ohio Revised Code regulating school buildings. Ohio law requires the “[s]upport and facilitation of smaller classes and the trend toward smaller schools” while also requiring projected or actual school enrollment to be 350 or more. The Ohio School Facilities Commission may also waive this rule when “topography, sparsity of population, and other factors make larger schools impracticable.” Here is an apparent contradiction in Ohio law that needs changed to reflect acknowledged best practice criteria, which also related to the other problem.

Urban school districts have tried super-sized schools. Both student behavior and academic performance declined significantly enough to cause many urban districts to return to smaller neighborhood schools. These are facts revealed in a study titled Reducing the Negative Effects of Large Schools. A national study called Smaller, Safer, Saner Successful Schools found schools with less than 350 students have better learning environments in which academic achievement is higher, dropouts are less, behavioral problems are fewer, and teacher satisfaction is greater than for larger schools. However, an older study by Kathleen Cotton titled School Size, School Climate, and Student Performance sets the maximum at 300-400 for elementary schools and 400-800 for secondary schools. As mentioned in Ohio law, the best schools are small schools.

Under Xenia’s rebuilding plan, enrollment at all combined elementary schools, except Tecumseh, will likely be over 400 students. The combined middle school enrollment will be over 1,100 and the high school currently has over 1,400 students. The above research presented case studies of successful large schools that were reorganized into smaller schools or units. Many were restructured similar to the magnet school concept but the various specialty schools were all located in the same building. By creating smaller schools under-one-roof, teacher and student interaction increased resulting in greater satisfaction and higher achievement.

Still some question whether super-sizing Xenia schools will adversely affect teacher performance and student learning. Fairborn City Schools latest test results suggest that students in larger elementary school settings can perform relatively well—comparable to some of Xenia primary schools. Yet, a comparison of all Xenia elementary schools shows that the top performing schools have enrollments under 300. In three of the four top performing schools, 54 to 62 percent of students come from economically disadvantaged homes. The percent of students from low-income homes at the fourth and the highest performing school is about 24 percent. This school also has the fourth highest percentage of minority students. Two of the other higher performing schools had the highest percentage of minorities in the school district. All of which points to smaller schools as the primary factor for more students achieving a proficiency score or higher on state achievement tests. The four highest performing schools also produced a higher percentage of students achieving accelerated and advanced scores locally and two of these schools exceeded state averages as well.

One attendee at the Xenia Community School District Forum brought up another issue that Xenia residents should consider. By 2011, Wright Patterson AFB will have gained 1,100 new military personnel who are being transferred mostly from the Brooks City Base located near San Antonio, Texas. They will be looking for new homes. Families with children will be looking for communities with the best schools and good neighborhoods. Xenia will have a hard time attracting them without bringing our schools up-to-date. As noted above, the best schools are small schools. According the study titled School Facility Conditions and Student Academic Achievement, the best schools also include safe, well lighted, and temperature-controlled learning environments with the presence of windows.

During the building tour, Robert Smith said state maintenance leaders rate Xenia maintenance staff and schools very high. Nevertheless, schools like Cox need building upgrades and repairs. One of the pictures on the School District website shows standing water near the building. Current environmental safety law, also known as Jared’s Law, mandates the elimination of the causes of any standing water near school buildings, flooding, or any other water damage. The law also mandates that plumbing and electrical systems be in good operating condition. As mentioned in part one, Cox requires considerable plumbing and well as well as electrical system renovation. One of the boilers is inoperable, some of the piping needs replaced, and bathroom facilities needs renovated. The electrical system is inadequate to handle computers and air conditioning and its circuit breakers are obsolete. In other words, Cox needs increased electrical service as well as new service panels and breakers. How much the repairs would actually cost was unknown.

Therefore, I think it would be beneficial to Xenia taxpayers to see an actual building-by-building detailed cost estimate of needed repairs and renovations renovations to compare with estimate costs of the current rebuilding plans.

Originally published on April 28 in the Xenia Daily Gazette

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Xenia Community Schools Rebuilding Plan: What I Learned at the Forum

Posted on October 21, 2008 by | 3 comments

By Daniel Downs

Part One

While growing up, I attended public school in Xenia. I went to GJVS, Xenia High, West (now Warner) Jr. High, and the infamous Cox Elementary. On April 2, I returned to Cox. No, I was not having a senior moment. I was not attending a children’s program nor was I attempting to get in touch with my earlier self—whatever that means. I returned to Cox to attend the second of three Xenia Community School District Forums lead by Wright State University Center for Urban and Public Affairs (CUPA) staff.

The program began with a tour of the building. Leading the tour was maintenance supervisor Robert Smith. He presented a history of Cox Elementary school expansions, renovations, and problems. Smith pointed out several current problems such as an antiquated electrical system not capable of being properly maintained or handling needed computer systems and air conditioning. Another issue was old plumbing and bathroom facilities needing renovated as well as a collapsed drainage pipe and occasional flooding. When asked about the cost of fixing those problems, Smith said he would not venture a guess. He did indicate that those repairs would entail a major renovation.

I think Smith committed a Freudian slip when he said, “I will have plenty of money for maintenance whether new schools are built or not.” That statement led me to believe the school district has enough money to fix the current problems. But, in light of the nearly $122.5 million building project, I might have committed a subliminal misunderstanding.

After the tour, WSU-CUPA staff presented a general overview of the present situation. The state has determined that no Xenia school building except the current high school and the Central High School meets the two-thirds rule. The rule means the state will not fund any building renovation that would costs two-thirds or more of the cost to build a new facility. Originally, the Ohio School Facilities Commission had condemned all Xenia school buildings under the two-thirds rule but Xenia school officials argued that the two newest facilities were compliant with disability regulations. They also proposed a reuse plan for the current high school and Central Middle School. The high school would house all middle school students and Central Middle School would be converted into an elementary school. The state liked the reuse plan and consequently waived the two-thirds rule.

According to the state law, it is possible to renovate schools even when costs will exceed the two-thirds rule. The Ohio School Facilities Commission will waive the rule based on factors such as the historical significance of a building, adequacy of a school’s structure, space, classroom size, and egress. Other factors used to evaluate schools are quality of lighting and air, long-term durability, and the ability to meet American Disability Act standards. Consequently, Xenia could possibly renovate the historically significant central office building and most of the schools.

According to board member Bill Spahr, another state rule is that all schools must have at projected enrollment of at least 350 students to receive Ohio School Facilities Commission funding, which explains why Xenia school administrators plan to reduce the number of elementary schools from seven to five. Super-sizing Xenia schools also means almost all middle school students will travel by bus to what is now the high school. It means no more neighborhood schools for families now attending Spring Hill, Simon Kenton, or Cox.

The plan to build new schools at current school locations with sufficient land makes sense. Doing so will allow students to continue meeting in the same buildings until new ones are built. However, I see a conflict with the 350 rule and the current rebuilding plan. For example, building a new school at Tecumseh will not change its enrollment of 280 students. Up the road towards town is Shawnee with an enrollment of 288. Children now attending Shawnee will likely attend what is now Central Middle School. Because a complete renovation is not planned for Central, the 350 rule doesn’t apply. School administrators are not planning to rebuild at Spring Hill. So where will its students go? Will the 219 children attending Spring Hill be bused to Central or will a new school be built to service both Spring Hill students and those living at Wright Cycle Estates? Or will children living in the areas between South Detroit and Bellbrook Avenue get a new school? If so, will the 380 children attending Simon Kenton combine with the 383 at McKinley instead of the 239 students at Arrowood? Where does that leave the 346 children attending Cox? Where do school officials plan to bus them? To Tecumseh?

I think building a new school at Cox would be a better use of school property. It would at least give Cox students a school in reasonable proximity to their neighborhoods. Remember, those most affected by the rebuilding plan are elementary age children and their parents.

Originally published on April 26 in the Xenia Daily Gazette

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