Española School District administrators knew their late audits would serve as a handicap when they went before a state school-funding council June 18 in Farmington.
And they did — the District’s application for $2.5 million for building renovations and new ball fields at Española Middle School has been placed on hold pending the audits’ submission.
But now the District has another condition to contend with. In order to move forward with the funding application, and in order to grant the District an extension on paying off a $750,000 loan, the state wants a letter of intent outlining the District’s plans to ask voters for a new property tax.
“Basically, they want a commitment from the District that they’re gonna go for a bond,” District Projects Manager Paul Salas said.
The letter of intent is due Thursday (6/25), Salas said. That’s the date of the Public Schools Capital Outlay Council’s next meeting, in Ruidoso.
Former District superintendant David Cockerham, who attended the June 18 meeting on his last day of work, said he told the Council that the District intends to go out for a bond.
“If they don’t go out, they don’t get any (Council) funds,” Cockerham said. “So that’s up to them.”
But the June 25 deadline doesn’t give the Española School Board enough time to meet and approve a bond-election date, even if they were inclined to do so. School Board President Leonard Valerio has said, as recently as mid-June, that the District probably would not seek a bond given the current economic climate and the failure of a two-mil levy measure in May. District voters rejected bond measures in 2007 and 2008.
Valerio said he doesn’t know what the Board will do about the state’s request.
“I need to talk to (new Superintendent Janette Archuleta),” Valerio said. “Maybe we could base (a letter of intent) on a superintendent recommendation. We can always rescind it or retract it later.”
At stake is $1.3 million to build athletic fields at Española Middle School and $1.26 million to renovate the middle school building and demolish condemned buildings at the former seventh-grade school facility on Hunter Street.
Aside from the bond matter, the Council also delayed approval of the funding application pending submission of the District’s late audits. The District still has not submitted its 2007 or 2008 audits to the state. Those audits were due in November of 2007 and 2008, respectively.
The Council agreed to hear all district applications and put those with outstanding audits on hold, Salas said. Williams said District administrators promised to meet the audit requirement by July.
“The Council was willing to allow Española to be considered out of cycle,” Williams said.
The Council does sometimes award funding after its main outlay each August. When the District lost out on funding in 2008, because of maintenance issues and failure to pass a bond, the Council later awarded it a slightly lesser amount than originally requested.
There’s one more issue in the back of everyone’s mind. If voters in any school district repeatedly refuse to raise their own taxes to pay for school buildings, a law passed in 2004 allows the state to impose a property tax by fiat.
Public School Facilities Authority Director Bob Gorrell, who would have to present information to the Council that a district was being recalcitrant, said he has heard of no plans to invoke that power.
Valerio said a state-imposed tax would work in the District’s favor, but he would hate to see that happen to voters.
“I think that’s really a tough pill to swallow,” Valerio said.