EDITORIAL: School district needs to move forward on outside-the-box solutions

The Clark County School District is getting a tough lesson in math as it deals with surging enrollment and aging campuses, amid numbers that come nowhere near adding up. As the Review-Journal’s Trevon Milliard reported last week, the district plans to spend $301 million in the next five years on capital projects, including replacing one school entirely, renovating and replacing equipment at older schools, and adding portable classrooms to alleviate student crowding.

But that funding covers less than 10 percent of what district officials say is needed. The waiting list has a whopping $3.5 billion in unfunded projects, including nine new elementary schools to keep pace with population growth, according to district spokeswoman Melinda Malone. Mr. Milliard noted Clark County schools also have $2.9 billion in debt dating to the 10-year 1998 bond, which won’t be paid off until 2028.

The numbers are staggering, and it’s unlikely that putting a capital proposal on the ballot would help. The district tried that in 2012, getting turned down decisively by 66 percent of voters. CCSD opted not to put the issue up for a vote this year, likely because it would compete with statewide Question 3 — the Teachers Initiative, often called the margins tax, which many in the education lobby believe is a panacea but is widely acknowledged to be a business and jobs killer.

What all this affirms is that Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky was spot-on when, back in March, he said the district would have to “think outside the box.” Indeed, the district must find a way to stretch that $301 million and put it toward the most optimal use, and further must continue to scrutinize its budget in all areas to see if any funding can be reallocated to more pressing matters, such as the tremendous maintenance backlog.

But we’re still not seeing a serious effort by the School Board to step up on behalf of the public it represents and begin a dialogue on other ways to deal with this challenge. Mr. Milliard reported that the district will spend $27.5 million to relocate 137 portable classrooms per year to where they are needed most; it costs about $40,000 each time a portable is transported and set up at a new location. So where is the “outside-the-box” conversation on converting and renting existing office buildings? Those are plentiful throughout the valley.

As we’ve also previously advocated, why not explore having a private developer front the costs to purchase land, build a new campus and allow the school district to lease it with an option to buy? Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie brokered such a deal to build a new headquarters for the Metropolitan Police Department on Martin Luther King Boulevard. At this point, when the district’s waiting-list wants outstrip its budget by 90 percent, there’s no harm in engaging the business community and seeking proposals.

Charter schools are forced to consider every option for classroom space. Why shouldn’t the school district? Several charter schools lease their buildings, an option that comes with a huge benefit the district could take advantage of: less maintenance costs. The school district does a terrible job taking care of its buildings, so why not pursue a path which greatly reduces maintenance from the equation?

If the district and the board won’t hear of or discuss these options, it will signal that their only plan is to inflict pain on the taxpaying public, by enacting measures such as year-round schedules or double sessions in order to leverage tax increases. Those aren’t serious solutions. It’s a completely unbridgeable gap from $301 million to $3.5 billion — a gap that will require getting serious, and the sooner, the better.