Middle School Consolidation

Editor, Times-Union:
I’ll preface this letter by stating that Warsaw Community Schools lives within its means when it comes to operations and the education fund. Clearly, the administration and school board care deeply about providing our kids with the best possible education. That being said, I have questions about this $143M middle school consolidation and capital improvement plan.
For those of us concerned about property taxes, schools are by far the largest driver of property taxes. For those of us who live in the Warsaw School District, 50-60% of our property tax goes to WCS. Property tax dollars are not used for educating students or paying teachers, the education fund comes from our income taxes that we pay to the state. Local property taxes are used to fund building maintenance and repair, utilities, equipment, and groundskeeping.
WCS currently serves approximately 6,700 students. Enrollment is down roughly 10% over the last 15 years, and the birth rate is down 15%, with no signs of turning around anytime soon. In line with this decline, WCS proposes to “right size” their middle schools, consolidating Edgewood and Lakeview.
Lakeview is a sixty-year-old building in need of significant renovation, regardless of whether or not the consolidation plan moves forward. WCS looked at several different options, including just making necessary renovations. The current proposal includes much more than that, getting everything updated and reorganized into a more “ideal” arrangement.
Renovations at Lakeview are projected at $50M. Adding on additional space to consolidate the middle schools is another $25M. Demolition and moving of Gateway and the Career Center Programs into Edgewood is another $10M. Athletic facilities improvements at Lakeview are another $10M. If WCS chooses to move forward on a new Gateway facility or Career Center expansion, those projects would be around $25M and $18M, respectively. Is your head spinning yet?
Consolidation has been pitched largely as a way to improve operational efficiency. Currently, students are bused from WCHS to Lakeview in order to take career center classes like welding, machining, and cosmetology. Running buses back and forth all day long is certainly not ideal. However, with projected operational savings of $1-2M per year, how long would it take to break even on $143M in bonds plus another $80M in bond interest between now and 2050?
The thing I find most concerning is, “we can make these capital improvements without raising taxes.” As far as I can tell, the only way that $143M+ of taxpayer dollars can be spent without raising taxes or asking for permission through a referendum, is if the taxes are way too high in the first place.
Let’s stop the perpetual debt cycle, make just the necessary renovations of $50-70M and save the average property owner in this district between $500-1,500 per year on property taxes. For those interested in asking questions and learning more, the next school board meeting is Tuesday, July 21st at 4 p.m.
Will Stockdale
Winona Lake, via email