Mt. Lebanon School District: ... The district is delaying borrowing the final $34 million necessary to complete the project with the expectation that state funding will be on-going at that time. However, with Act 1 limitations, the district has serious concerns about the ability to provide funding for the bonds if it does not receive the $450,000 missing in state subsidy on the first bond issue as well as the subsidy on the second bond issue once it is issued.
The MLSD would have saved the State $900,000 if they had not issued bonds two years before they accepted bids. We squandered $900,000 of State resources with the early issuance of $75,000,000 of bonds and now the PSBA is carrying the torch for MLSD.
ReplyDeleteHas the party responsible for the early bond issue been replaced or rewarded with a salary increase?
It was a big salary increase based upon the recommendation of . . . well you know.
As for the Mifflinberg School District cited, don't be surprised if we lose the $900,000 MLEA grievance based upon a court case that was filed by the Mifflinberg teachers.
Boy, I wish SOMEBODY, ANYBODY would have told Jan Klein and the Board that they might have trouble with the second set of bonds.
ReplyDelete"While I have no doubt that we will have the ability to go to the market for the first $69 million in bonds and also the second $47 million, I do have concerns about the Act 1 limitations on the second bond issuance. As I mentioned before, the first bond float is exempt from Act 1. Even if millage needs to increase above an Act 1 limit, we will not be forced to referendum. However, with the second float, that might not be the case. If we did a straight float at $47 million that resulted in over a 1 mill increase, then along with any other kind of budget changes, I would expect that our 2011-2012 budget would be over the Act 1 millage increase limit. It would be the worst of all scenarios to have to go to referendum at that point in the high school project to get the final $47 million to complete a two-thirds completed project. I did ask our financial adviser about this and he admitted that it "could" be an issue. But he also said that there are ways around this. Essentially, what he said is that there are ways to avoid the Act 1 referendum at that point which would include structuring the bonds in such a way that they have minimal up-front impact on millage- essentially recommending that if we were expected to exceed Act 1 limits then we should just wrap the bonds to avoid a referendum."
http://lebosbupdates.blogspot.com.br/2009/08/august-10-meeting-summary.html
Of course, the Board and Jan would suggest the year is wrong. But that's due to the fact that Jan hasn't figured out how to do this without a referendum yet.
Had the board listened to Dan Rothschild, the CAC and Dirk Taylor (people that actually know something about building construction) they would have saved millions of dollars and most likely brought the project in under $100 million.
ReplyDeleteBut noooo... The athletic people wanted their vomitorium to the stadium. From Lebocitizens:
"Thursday, July 28, 2011
Buildings B and C: Collaborative Partners
Dan Rothschild has a great post on his new blog, lebodesign.net. In his post,Buildings B and C: Collaborative Partners , Dan writes how the CAC was inspired by Dr. Davis' 45 minute lecture where he said that by arranging departments side-by-side, the opportunity for interdepartmental collaboration increases."
We didn't need to spend mllions to tear down building C or thousands fighting zoning legal battles.
Word on the street from attorneys in the know is that MTLSD has in fact already lost the grievance case, but the decision has been blocked from publication for unknown specific reasons.
ReplyDeleteTime for an RTK on the grievance, or is that protected...?
ReplyDeleteThey would deny that request in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeleteElaine
Hey, Lebo taxpayer it's an annual $900,000 expenditure that is "FOR THE CHILDREN!"
ReplyDeleteIt's so much for the kids that next year the board is going to figure out what fees and increases to pile on taxpayers and the kids.
6:56 AM Jan Klein's reference to wrapping the second bond issue to avoid a referendum - she did wrap the $50 million bond issue for the elementary school renovations during 2003-2005 to minimize the initial millage increase necessary to finance it. And that might have even occurred during a SB election year as well.
ReplyDeleteThis particular $50 million elementary school bond wrapping resulted in a total debt service cost required to retire the debt of $103 million, of which $10 million was the cost premium over serial or conventional GO bond structuring that had to be paid by we suckered taxpayers.
So keep this well in mind - that Jan and the District might very well believe that the significant taxpayer cost premium associated with wrapping for the coming second bond issue would totally justify, in their minds at least, avoidance of an electoral referendum.
Bill Lewis
Just for more clarity, Bill, even wrapping the bonds as Jan did for the elementary school will not work in the long term. At some point the Board will have to actually pay down the principal. With Act 1 structured the way it is, that year when the principal has to be paid back, the Board would then have to refinance and pay only interest again or else go to referendum.
ReplyDeleteI don't see how they can avoid it. Whether it's upfront or down the road, Jan Klein messed this up some kind of bad. They should have floated ALL the bonds up front and tried for a referendum then instead of shoving this project out there and crossing their fingers.
Yes, I blame Dan Remely, Ed Kubit, Elaine Cappucci, Josephine Posti, and any one of those Build Our School Now people who thought this was easy as pie to figure out. It never was. They looked at dog crap and claimed we were all looking at rainbows.
The thing is, reality will eventually settle in.
The PSBA declares:
ReplyDelete"The state has a responsibility to provide reimbursement to school districts for their school construction costs, with the majority of those projects involving necessary repairs or renovations affecting the health safety of the students and teachers in these buildings"
Don't school boards (especially ours) have a responsibility to control their building designs and construction costs?
Don't you just love people that point their fingers at others for problems they've created!
Our board was warned, advised, petitioned not to pursue Celli's grandiose boondoggle.
They did it anyway and are now blaming the state for their financial problems.
You dont have to file RTK to get info on the grievance. Get an attorney to file suit against one of the idiots on the SB. Then if it makes it to court it opens up everything for discovery. But i dont know how a judge would see it.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind the school board members do not have any kind of immunity if theyve committed malfeasance or crimes and they can be sued personally as well as prosecuted.
11:11 AM, with all the attorneys in Mt. Lebanon, you would think one would offer to do that pro bono. Some of these RTKs have cost up to $45.00 a piece.
ReplyDeleteElaine
Unless you've forgotten attorneys did try to get the records opened on Sablegate, Wagner in his audit said the public has a RTK, but it never happened and no director was found guilty of anything.
ReplyDeleteDespite all the claims of transparency the board operates behind even more veils of secrecy, IMO.
PSBA stands for SCHOOL BOARDS. The school boards pay the dues to support this lobbying Association from tax dollars.
ReplyDelete