7/9/09
Just weeks after spending nearly $70,000 on a failed mil levy election, the Española School Board is considering going back to voters with a new and bigger request.
Board President Leonard Valerio said the Board will discuss a potential bond measure July 15.
“For the most part, I think the rest of the Board wants to go for it,” Valerio said. “We need the money.”
Board member Coco Archuleta said the District might ask voters for $17 million, payable over several years through a property tax increase. The mil levy, which failed May 19 by a margin of 58 votes, would have generated $1.2 million annually.
District voters previously rejected a mil levy and $21 million bond in 2007.
“The price for Alcalde school and everything else has gone up tremendously since we originally planned to do (a bond),” Archuleta said. “The dollar’s not what it used to used be, you know?”
Archuleta was referring to the price tag of a new Alcalde Elementary. The cost of this long-delayed project has risen at least $10 million in four years from the original estimate of $4.2 million.
Valerio had said recently that 2009 wasn’t the right time to seek a major bond issue. But the Board was placed in a tight spot late last month when outgoing superintendent David Cockerham, on his last day, told the state’s major school funding agency that the District would definitely seek a bond in the fall.
The District had gone before the Public Schools Capital Outlay Council to ask for $2.5 million for renovations and demolition, and the state wanted some assurances that the community was pulling its weight and that the District would be able to pay down outstanding state debts.
Valerio said the Board will inform the Council of its decision as soon as possible. But he remains pessimistic about a bond’s chances.
“Whether the Board decides to go for a bond or not, I don’t think the public will support us,” Valerio said. “We could advertise it all day long for the next three or four months, but people are still gonna vote no because of the economic turn that our economy has taken.”
Campaign Costs
The Board drove up the cost of the mil levy election (see sidebar) when it decided to hire advisor Leo Valdez for $30,000 plus expenses.
Board Vice President Joann Salazar said Valdez is a nice guy, but she wouldn’t hire him again.
“(Valdez’s) role was to take the lead in making sure we had the right amount of publicity and citizen commitment to get the message out,” Salazar said. “He assured us he had never lost (a mil levy) election. We’re very disappointed we paid a consultant without a successful outcome.”
Valdez did not return a call seeking comment.
Archuleta said the Board and the District need to do a better job of explaining to the public just how dire the District’s financial need is, and proving that the District is doing all it can with the money it does have.
“Personally, I don’t think we can afford (to hire Valdez),” Coco Archuleta said. “Not because of the charges or anything, I just feel if we’re going to show prudent financial management in this District, we want to be accountable, it’ll be the Board and the District that have to go out and push this thing and answer the public’s questions.”
The District didn’t do much to publicize the mil levy until the week before the election, and voter turnout was weak. But the District made sure that the few voters who did show up could cast their ballots early. As a result, it paid poll workers and Rio Arriba County employees $8,500, more than the entire cost of holding two school board races in February.
“Española had early voting in person for 11 days, which they normally don’t, in addition to having early voting by mail in (Tierra Amarilla) for 12 days,” Rio Arriba County Deputy Clerk Fred Vigil said.
A District-wide special election can also incur a greater expense than a board election in which only a handful of precincts are eligible to vote, Vigil said.