By Lopez Island School Board
Special to the Weekly
We appreciate the attention being paid to the revised bond. An insert in today’s paper has bond details. Take a look. We’ve also received some thoughtful questions about the school in general and wish to provide some answers here.
Question: Is the school in okay financial shape?
Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: We budgeted this year to build our financial reserves, enrollment is above budget and up from last year, and we are very pleased with the service and expertise of our new financial managers of North Central Educational Service District.
We did have a serious financial processing issue a year ago. We discovered that issue, fixed and reported it and hired NCESD to do this work ongoing. Moreover, recognizing the changes we’ve made, the state auditors put us back on an every-other-year audit schedule indicating they have confidence in our new approach.
Q: Why does Lopez have a higher cost per student than Orcas or San Juan Schools?
Short answer: You cannot compare an apple to an orange. Longer answer: As a small rural district we are eligible for significant state funding to allow us to offer the range of courses needed for our students to meet Washington State graduation requirements.
Those funds come from the state, not from local school tax dollars. Orcas and San Juan don’t get that level of funding given their larger class sizes.
When we accept these state funds our ‘cost/student’ increases. We feel strongly that we want a high school on Lopez.
To do that we need to accept the state funding even if that means a higher “cost per student.” Interestingly, given our small size and the additional support we get from the state, our local operations (M&O tax rate is actually less than Orcas or San Juan.
On Lopez we pay .67 per $1,000 in assessed value to run our school, San Juan pays .73/$1,000 and Orcas pays .88 per $1,000. www.co.san-juan.wa.us/assessor/faq.aspx
Q: So comparing to SJ or Orcas isn’t apples-to-apples, but how then do we know if our costs aren’t out of line?
Short answer: Really good question. Longer answer: When compared to 12 peer districts that are our same size, Lopez cost per student is well in line.
We are not the highest or the lowest: number three from the top, significantly less than the highest and within 10 percent of five other districts.
For who we are (a small K-12 district) our costs are pretty typical. That said, we can still improve – especially around energy and maintenance costs (where we are the most expensive of our peers and a key reason to renovate our buildings) and in the district office where our costs are higher than a number of other districts.
Look for yourself: a report is posted on the school’s website, left-hand side. http://www.lopezislandschool.org.
Q: Didn’t Superintendent Bill Evans resign last spring? Why is he still here?
Short answer: We asked him to be here. Longer answer: Last spring Bill realized two things: we needed to restructure our district office and any new superintendent needed to have more financial expertise than he does.
As such, Bill offered to go on a month-to-month contract to give us flexibility in restructuring and in replacing him.
The board accepted this. We spent the summer restructuring the financial side of the district office. In November we’ll start redefining the superintendent role and searching for Bill’s replacement.
Typically this takes until the end of the school year, so Bill will likely serve us until then.
Q: The renovation project sounds complex. How can our small district manage that?
Short Answer: We can’t. Longer answer: We don’t have the expertise to manage this project. As such, in the bond are funds to hire a professional construction project manager with extensive experience with Lopez and with building in the islands.
Thanks for taking the time to consider our answers.
You can email any of us via the school website if you’ve further questions or comments.
And thank you for considering the revised bond and please remember to vote by Nov. 4.
