Was Stumptown Elementary Sacrificed To Appease NAACP?
Mecklenburg commissioners on Tuesday night approved spending $156.4 million to launch 18 capital projects, from parks and greenways to school renovations and new-school construction. But not Stumptown Elementary, a planned $15 million school that parents and education advocates in north Mecklenburg say is long overdue and desperately needed to relieve severe overcrowding at Torrence Creek Elementary.
Instead, commissioners will vote next spring to allocate money for Stumptown, so the school can open in time for the 2013-14 school year. So why the delay? It depends on who you ask.
School officials blame a flaw in the county’s new system used to evaluate and rank capital projects, to determine priority for funding.
Stumptown Elementary was ranked fifth among 15 projects in a capital priority list crafted by CMS officials, using their own criteria. Under the county’s new system, Stumptown ranked 26 on a priority list of 65 projects submitted by various agencies and departments, failing to make the cut of 18 projects approved this year for funding.
County officials blame Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ failure to understand the process and intent of the new ranking system.
The new system, however, was repeatedly explained to every county agency and department that submitted projects for funding, leading some to suspect it might have been a case of willful ignorance on the part of CMS, or that more nefarious motives were in play.
“It’s to me strange that the one group that didn’t read the instructions is the one group that’s instructing our kids,” Commissioner Bill James said. “I think that’s a little bit on the scary side. The school board, evidently, was asleep at the switch. I don’t know what the deal was on that.”
But he hazarded a plausible explanation Tuesday night: CMS officials deliberately skewed so-called growth projects, new-school construction in the suburbs, to score low on the county priority list.
It’s an accusation James has made previously, most notably in an e-mail exchange with school board member Rhonda Lennon, whose district includes north Mecklenburg, leading up to the county board’s vote on Tuesday night.
“From what I have heard,” James wrote, “CMS decided (made a conscious decision) to avoid ‘new’ school construction because after closing 11 schools mostly in the inner-city they are worried that Black pastors and the NAACP would go ballistic if they built new schools in the burbs right after closing a bunch of inner-city ones.”
Lennon flatly rejected James’ theory, writing that, “your accusations of that CMS has changed anything d/t [due to] any concerns about building new schools in high growth/overcrowded areas shortly after closing under-utilized schools in areas too are from the high growth areas to be of relief to their overcrowding ARE FALSE and MISLEADING and just RIDICULOUS.”
Lennon offered her take on what transpired and how Stumptown got knocked out of contention for funding.
I have taken time to talk to numerous people involved in the process. Here is what I have learned.
1. CMS submitted the top 15 projects to the conty (sic) as requested. Each project had a ranking from CMS based on the previously approved prioritization by the BOE.
2. CMS applied the COUNTY approved capital funding rubric to each of their projects. In this measure Stumptown and Palisades (both new construction projects) were given a ranking of 37 points by CMS staff. This was not a CMS ranking– but CMS staff applying YOUR approved rubric.
3. County staff applied the rubric to all projects, in their ranking they gave Stumptown and Palisades both 32 points- even less than CMS staff did in their application of the COUNTY rubric.
4. At NO time did CMS change their prioiritization (sic) list from what was approved and presented to your BOCC in summer 2009 (recall the QSCB bond presentation?? I do, I was in a room watching it!) 5. Ms [Dena] Diorio [county finance director] has stated in numerous emails and live at your BOCC meeting that she “did NOT take into consideration any departmental input” in determining her list of rankings.
6. I have viewed the CMS documents, and in all the projects remain prioritized just like presented in 2009
…
Bill– Your County finance director is on record stating she DID NOT CONSIDER CMS input– so how could CMS’s opinion even have mattered. Frankly Bill, there (sic) new growth schools are going to be funded either this year or next, so if the NAACP is going to have public outcry it will no matter when it happens. So why would CMS also want to also alienate the suburban parents by ignoring their needs as well. Come on Bill! I have talked to CMS staff and each of them finds these accusations ridiculous and unfounded.
Bill– what is of most concern as a representative of a high growth suburban area, is that YOUR BOCC approved a capital funding rubric that places growth project at the bottom of the priority list. Wasn’t this formerly what CMS did back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s? Well CMS has, for the last serval (sic) years balanced their capital plan between growth and renovations. It is disturbing that the new Rubric reverses that and places renovation projects aahead (sic) of new construction. It is my firm belief that the rubric needs adjusting– which is not uncommon when a new objective mathematical formula is developed– tweaking needs to happen ASAP!
Countered James:
I believe that the CMS school board should have revised the capital projects list long ago. I advocated for that several times over the last number of years but the School Board and Gorman ignored the repeated requests of the County Commission to do so. The School board was informed at every step of our progress in establishing a bond fund and was aware of the need to revise their bloated 10 year capital needs assessment.
I have suspected for some time that CMS staff and Gorman decided to ignore revising the old capital projects list knowing it would be controversial and decided to just work with County staff to develop a new one for the upcoming year bypassing the dysfunctional CMS School Board. Had CMS wanted to create their own revisions bringing the School Board into the process they have had years to do it.
County officials contend the new ranking system is a fair way to allocate limited capital dollars and is more effective than the old system, which saw commissioners dole out funding based on priority lists crafted by county departments and agencies, such Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Park and Recreation, and Central Piedmont Community College.
Under the new system, all projects submitted by county departments and agencies are considered together by county finance staff, and ranked in priority based on nine criteria, everything from whether a project is needed to meet a federal or state mandate to its impact on economic development and operating costs; projects are then recommended for approval under a funding cap set by the county.
The new process was implemented after a liberal Democrat majority on the county board blew through more than $2 billion funding capital projects over the pervious decade, leaving the county facing massive debt problems and warnings from bond rating agencies. In response, the county in 2009 went on a so-called debt diet that saw a halt in construction projects. The 18 projects approved Tuesday night are the first to make it back to the spending buffet table.
County Finance Director Dena Diorio defended the new ranking system and offered an explanation for the apparent confusion and contention when it came to Stumptown Elementary not being included.
“My opinion of what happened here is that in some cases, staff did not communicate out to their board what process we were going through,” Diorio told commissioners. “I think that when all was said and done, the expectation was we were going to give people blank capital project ordinances and they were going to be able to use those to build whatever they wanted.
“It wasn’t until we said, ‘sorry, we’re not doing it that way anymore and we’re going to hold you to the project list,’ that’s when people got concerned,” Diorio said. “I really feel strongly that we worked in conjunction with all of our partners throughout this process and I think it’s fairly telling that there’s only one entity who said they didn’t understand.”
The “one entity,” of course, being CMS.
“Everybody else,” Diorio said, “seemed to know the direction we were headed.”
Project list approved Tuesday night by commissioners:
CMS – $69 million, from 2007 bonds
McClintock Middle School – replacement
Fire alarms at 13 schools
Alexander Graham Middle School – renovation
Pineville Elementary School – replacement
Newell Elementary School – renovation
Baine Elementary School – replacement
South Meck High School – renovation
Parks and Recreation – $32.4 million, from 2004 bonds
Romare Bearden Park
Clarks Creek & i-485 Crossing Greenway
Memorial Stadium repairs
Four Mile Creek Greenway
Matthews SportsPlex
Land acquisitions
CPCC – $16 million, from 2005 bonds
Taylor Hall renovation
Harper Campus renovation
CPCC – $25 million, from 2007 bonds
Van Every building replacement
Government Facilities – $14 million, from county funds
Johnson C. Smith University track resurfacing
Arrest processing renovation
District Attorney expansion
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