Equity Paramount In Building Two New Schools

The Central Valley School District has asked its voters to spend a jaw-dropping $78 million for a simple reason.

Political reality demands it.

The $78 million school bond, the largest ever proposed in Spokane County, would pay for a new University High School at 32nd and Pines and a rebuilt and enlarged Central Valley High School at Eighth and Sullivan, essentially creating two new and quite similar schools. The measure will be on the September 15 ballot.

Although a smaller amount would be easier on taxpayers’ pocketbooks, any bond measure that focuses on just one high school is doomed to failure, school officials believe.

Equity between the two CV high schools? “That’s a definite political need, alright!” chuckled Dave Jackman, the district official who works most closely with construction projects.

“I think this community has made it very clear they would support doing both schools at the same time, but not one at a time,” school board chairwoman Patty Minnihan said earlier this year.

The history of bond losses over the last 12 years - six out of eight bond attempts failed since 1986 - is testament to a time of hard feelings in the Central Valley district. Talk of improving one high school ahead of the other, and bond measures that tried to do so, led to a fractured community.

“I think what caused the problems,” said Bob Rands, a member of the U-Hi site council, “was the two schools … didn’t trust the other group.” A lot of the problem, Rands added, stems from a number of years ago, when CV’s football bleachers and lighting were superior to U-Hi’s. Yet, “the school board came back and said they would renovate CV first and then, later do U-Hi. I think people (thought), ‘Well, CV gets everything and U-Hi doesn’t get anything.”’

The bond measure that came closest to successfully updating the two high schools was in 1993. It would have spent $8.2 million to remodel most of CV High, and $7.9 million to remodel most of U-Hi. That bond measure earned 73 percent approval, but failed to attract enough voters to validate the election.

So, big scary number or not, the school district has presented its taxpayers with a bond measure large enough to build basically two new high schools, the largest bond measure in Spokane County history.

The need is there, the school board says.

CV High is 41 years old and U-Hi is 37 years old. Both buildings need major overhauls in their heating, plumbing and electrical systems. Also, the school board has long wanted to move ninth-graders from the junior highs into the high schools. Rebuilding the new schools would have the space to allow that.

If voters pass the $78 million bond election next month, about $36 million will go to rebuild CV High. The other $42 million would build the new U-Hi.

Those dollar figures are unequal for a couple of reasons.

First, there’s the need to move U-Hi to a larger site, both to accommodate ninth graders and to allow space for more playing fields and parking. The only other option for expanding U-Hi on its current site would be to condemn about 20 homes. The district has shied away from that idea.

The district already owns the 48 acres that is designated as the new U-Hi site. But in addition to a new school building, U-Hi will need new athletic facilities, things that are in place at CV High.

Another reason that less money is allotted to CV High, said architect Gary Dinwoodie, is that the kind of major renovation that CV High will undergo is expected to save 20 percent over the cost of new construction.

Take 20 percent of U-Hi’s $42 million and you’ve got $8.4 million. Complete the arithmetic, and you’ll find that the CV figure is higher than predicted by about $2.5 million.

That’s due in large part, Dinwoodie explained, to the fact that CV High would grow from 147,000 square feet to 232,000 square feet.

Today’s low interest rates are another reason to tackle both high schools now, officials say. The tax base of Central Valley, strengthened by the addition of the Spokane Valley Mall, is a powerhouse. Central Valley’s tax base can take on the $78 million debt - in today’s economy, at today’s interest rates - with a tax rate of 57 cents per $1,000 in assessed value. That’s $57 a year for a $100,000 home, and a bargain compared to the tax rates for recent bond measures in neighboring districts.

Speaking of those neighbors, there’s one more factor that’s given the Central Valley district the gumption to go after this big bond issue.

The cliche “keeping up with the Joneses” might, in this case, be amended to keeping up with Mead, with Spokane School District’s Lewis and Clark High School, with Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls.

All four have recently passed bond issues to build new high schools, or renovate what they have. In the last 12 months, Mead opened a top-notch new high school and decided to put $31 million into renovating the 26-year-old Mead High School.

Central Valley School Board member Cindy McMullen voiced the sentiment well at the bond campaign kick-off in April. She said, “There is no way that our folks are going to let LC and Mead or one of those high schools over on that side of the border get rebuilt and not do the same in CV.”