$20 Million Dollar Fiscal Cliff Looming - "Hey - Let's spend millions more on a pool"

WTF?  Our School District faces an upcoming "Fiscal Cliff" with a gap of $20 million, with layoffs looming and people are suddenly clamoring to spend MILLIONS on a Pool (which the BOE already decided to close 2.5 years ago).

Holy cow!

http://villagegreennj.com/schools-kids/ramos-talks-fiscal-cliff-district-considers-cutting-19-full-time-employees/

http://villagegreennj.com/schools-kids/petition-save-columbia-high-school-pool-garners-1300-signatures/

You seem surprised by this.  Has it been that long?

people want everything if they don't have to pay for it.  Signing a petition costs nothing.

.

(Comment withdrawn. I see now that what the BOE is considering and what the petitioners want are two different things.) 

But I'm confused. What happened to the $10-20k repair proposal? Did those repairs happen?

A minor repair here and there doesn't fix a major problem with ancient decaying plumbing, as many of us know from dealing with our own aging homes....

TarheelsInNj said:

But I'm confused. What happened to the $10-20k repair proposal? Did those repairs happen?

hi, I just moved here. Please redo all you past decisions to appease my entitled Park Slope transplant a$$, but don't be surprised when I later criticise your ability to balance a budget without raising my taxes and then mount a campaign to remove you from your elected office and then in three magical years some other new people move in and want to undo what I already made you undo so we go nowhere. But you will not care because I increased your home values.

ArchBroad said:

hi, I just moved here. Please redo all you past decisions to appease my entitled Park Slope transplant a$$, but don't be surprised when I later criticise your ability to balance a budget without raising my taxes and then mount a campaign to remove you from your elected office and then in three magical years some other new people move in and want to undo what I already made you undo so we go nowhere. But you will not care because I increased your home values.

We have a new Netflix series in the making.  House of Pools!

susan1014 said:

A minor repair here and there doesn't fix a major problem with ancient decaying plumbing, as many of us know from dealing with our own aging homes....

TarheelsInNj said:

But I'm confused. What happened to the $10-20k repair proposal? Did those repairs happen?

Of course. I'm just trying to understand the progression. Did they undertake the repairs and they weren't sufficient? The proposal wasn't that long ago.

they did the repairs, which were only supposed to prolong the pool life by a few years. They are now evaluating the pool again to see if it could be prolonged further without major work.

ArchBroad said:

they did the repairs, which were only supposed to prolong the pool life by a few years. They are now evaluating the pool again to see if it could be prolonged further without major work.

Thanks

ArchBroad said:

They are now evaluating the pool again to see if it could be prolonged further without major work.

So the BOE is considering keeping it open for an extra year or two, and the petition is urging ongoing maintenance beyond that. Is that right? If so, my question is on again: What "millions more" in pool spending is the OP referring to?

The "additional year or two" has already passed.  The estimate is based on the numbers that were provided and voted down 2.5 years ago. The pool petition says:

 "sign this petition to keep the Columbia Swim Team in their home pool, the physical education department challenging, and for our community to come together in a historic facility for years to come!"

michaelgoldberg said:

The "additional year or two" has already passed.  

Summer 2016 was the target that accounted for the repairs and that was given before the November 2013 board vote, so I'm not sure why the two-plus years since then would count as additional time. Semantics aside, for anyone interested in revisiting that BOE meeting and member comments (while there was unanimity against building a new pool, there was some hedging on closing the current one), the discussion starts around the 41-minute mark:

http://somatv.pegcentral.com/player.php?video=59d1008ed52dfc7be5f592492a8497de

DaveSchmidt said:

ArchBroad said:

They are now evaluating the pool again to see if it could be prolonged further without major work.

So the BOE is considering keeping it open for an extra year or two, and the petition is urging ongoing maintenance beyond that. Is that right? If so, my question is on again: What "millions more" in pool spending is the OP referring to?

My understanding is that the ongoing maintenance will not be sufficient, nor was it ever considered to be sufficient long-term, ergo the need for greater capital expenditure at some point soon.

Thanks, ctrzaska. After michaelgoldberg's response, I found an amount for restoring the current pool -- $4.9 million -- in the 2013 capital plan.

DaveSchmidt said:

Thanks, ctrzaska. After michaelgoldberg's response, I found an amount for restoring the current pool -- $4.9 million -- in the 2013 capital plan.

That's also where the 8.1 comes from and the old option 1 vs 4 debate.

I was gonna say: Thanks again.

(Late post, period.)

michaelgoldberg said:

The "additional year or two" has already passed.  The estimate is based on the numbers that were provided and voted down 2.5 years ago. The pool petition says:

 "sign this petition to keep the Columbia Swim Team in their home pool, the physical education department challenging, and for our community to come together in a historic facility for years to come!"

None of those goals are worth $5mm. In fact, none of them even mean anything. "keeping gym challenging" is a goal? What does that mean? How do we measure our deficit? And it it is a goal, is it defeated entirely by the lack of a pool?

And of course, the ever-empty bringing of the "community together"... Whoever that is, whatever that means. Without a pool, we shall descend into armed camps, never to see our neighbors again. 

Oh wait. It's still winter. We do that anyway.

I make fun, but really, when the only benefits you can come up with are of dubious worth and unquantifiable, you really are reduced to one core issue: you want a pool, and you're hoping other people will pay for it.

As thinking, reasonable adults (I include myself in that group, believe it or not!) we should be open to compelling and cogent arguments.

Likewise, we should be warned off and indeed repelled by muddled, confused "benefits" which when spoken only serve to move the air in front of the speaker's mouth.

Kind of pathetic that our two towns and the school district can't find a way to build a pool such as the one in Caldwell that would serve the needs of our entire community.

kind of pathetic that we have a Y that has not been interested in partnering with anyone , town, schools , community to get a pool facility built.

Well, I suppose you can blame one organization for a collective failure.  But, the South Mountain YMCA doesn't even have gym facilities for adults so I wouldn't really expect a pool to be on their radar.

mod said:

kind of pathetic that we have a Y that has not been interested in partnering with anyone , town, schools , community to get a pool facility built.

tjohn said:

Well, I suppose you can blame one organization for a collective failure.  But, the South Mountain YMCA doesn't even have gym facilities for adults so I wouldn't really expect a pool to be on their radar.

mod said:

kind of pathetic that we have a Y that has not been interested in partnering with anyone , town, schools , community to get a pool facility built.

Our Y seems to have a very narrow focus on early childhood unlike Y's in other nearby towns.  A project like a pool needs a partner that has much to gain (increased programming) is consistent with its mission and an ability to raise funds.  Our towns already have pools.  Our school district needs its funds to go into the classroom.  That leaves the Y

I view it as a community need and don't see fit to break it down by entity.  I think our schools would benefit from, among many things, sports facilities that aren't an embarrassment.  I suppose I wouldn't put these before replacing bathrooms that aren't fit for a dog, but they are still important.

ArchBroad said:

hi, I just moved here. Please redo all you past decisions to appease my entitled Park Slope transplant a$$, but don't be surprised when I later criticise your ability to balance a budget without raising my taxes and then mount a campaign to remove you from your elected office and then in three magical years some other new people move in and want to undo what I already made you undo so we go nowhere. But you will not care because I increased your home values.

ArchBroad alludes to an interesting dynamic we began seeing explicitly when Osborne was the super. 

What he knew that many of us (including me) didn't, was that whatever changes he planned for the district that looked desirable or progressive to people outside the community (IB, for instance, or deleveling in the name of college attainment) could be enacted without much political consequence even if a substantial percentage of people who already lived here voted with their feet. In effect, the NY real estate market is an engine that drives changes in our school district and its priorities, which become tailored to fit the aspirational preferences of future residents, not current ones. And nothing has to pan out or be sustainable, because next year there will be different voters.

Osborne did not of course invent this insight--it's just an extension of the principle the towns and the school district followed in years past, which is that taxes (and theoretically  the standard of living) could be allowed to rise pretty freely as long as people wealthier than the current residents kept wanting to move here. But I think Osborne saw that the principle could be extended from expenditures in general to policy. 

No doubt maintaining a pool at CHS looks very appealing if you can afford it. At a certain point, though, the question has to be asked: if you have to be that rich to live here, what will it ultimately mean for the diversity of our towns? I don't just mean the racial diversity; I mean income diversity, professional diversity, class diversity, etc.--the diversity in types of people.

Sometimes feels like we're on our way to becoming Summit or Chatham.  

Except how "rich" can we be if we have to cut 19 full-time positions and library funding, not to mention the pool, in order to stay within a budget?

It took a while, but we really are experiencing the consequences of failing to heed Eisenhower's warning.  One M-1 tank costs about $9,000,000.  I wonder what we could do with that money in the BOE budget.

It seems to me that you send an implicit message to public school kids when you send them to school in dumps.

Or, to put it another way, subject to some adjustments, shouldn't all public school kids enjoy the facilities of, say, Newark Academy?

TarheelsInNj said:

Except how "rich" can we be if we have to cut 19 full-time positions and library funding, not to mention the pool, in order to stay within a budget?

Yeah, because of that pesky state-imposed cap we can't exercise our full richness. Nanny state Republicans.

Really they just need a donor.

mod said:

tjohn said:

Well, I suppose you can blame one organization for a collective failure.  But, the South Mountain YMCA doesn't even have gym facilities for adults so I wouldn't really expect a pool to be on their radar.

mod said:

kind of pathetic that we have a Y that has not been interested in partnering with anyone , town, schools , community to get a pool facility built.

Our Y seems to have a very narrow focus on early childhood unlike Y's in other nearby towns.  A project like a pool needs a partner that has much to gain (increased programming) is consistent with its mission and an ability to raise funds.  Our towns already have pools.  Our school district needs its funds to go into the classroom.  That leaves the Y