Menlo Park school trustees consider plans to replace portable classrooms Menlo Park school trustees consider plans to replace portable classrooms (March 10, 2004)

By Marjorie Mader
Almanac Staff Writer

Trustees of the Menlo Park City School District will consider this week options to replace the 21 portable classrooms at the four schools with permanent buildings.

Superintendent Ken Ranella plans to present a conceptual plan for the development of district facilities at the board meeting, set to start at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 11, at the district office, 181 Encinal Ave. in Atherton.

Since coming to the district 19 months ago, Mr. Ranella has been concerned about the district's spending approximately $250,000 a year from its general fund for leasing 17 portables. The district owns four portables.

Working with consultants, he has been investigating options to finance their replacement and possibly additional facilities that might include music rooms at Encinal and Laurel schools, a performing arts center at Hillview and district storage space.

"It really will come down to funding," said Mr. Ranella during an earlier board study session. Would the district rather pay $350,000 annually for interest on equity instead of $250,000 annually for leased portables, he asked.

Another idea that emerged from the study session is to refinance a portion of the remaining $19 million balance on the district's $22 million bond measure, passed by voters in 1995. This option takes advantage of current lower interest rates for tax-exempt bonds.

Refinancing a series of the bonds could save taxpayers an anticipated $450,000 over the long haul, according to the bond firm Kelling, Northcross and Norbriga.

Specific financial information will be presented at this week's meeting. Trustees showed interest in the refinancing option and appear likely to approve it Thursday night, providing the interest rate is in the anticipated 3.5 percent range. The current interest rate the district is paying is 5.76 percent, according to the bond firm.

Another option suggested would be to hold what's called a "no tax-rate increase" bond election. It would allow the issuance of more bonds without increasing the current tax rate. It works this way: Without new bond authorizations, the tax rate on the existing bond authorization would go down from approximately $23 per $100,000 assessed valuation to approximately $8.70 in 2023, due to increasing property values in the district and level debt service. Under the "no tax-rate increase bond" proposal, more bonds would be authorized and the tax rate kept at approximately $23 per $100,000 of assessed valuation.

There's a history behind the portable classrooms. They were moved onto the Laurel, Oak Knoll, Encinal and Hillview school campuses after the passage of the district's November 1995 bond measure to provide temporary classrooms during the district's major school renovation and construction projects.

Shortly after the district developed its master plans for each campus, the state in 1996 initiated its class-size reduction incentive that would give funds to districts if they reduced class sizes to 20 or fewer students in kindergarten through third grade.

Parents urged the district to take advantage of this state plan although it would cause a shortage of classrooms and the district would need additional funds to cover the cost. The temporary portables now have become almost permanent. The cost of replacing them with modulars or stick construction is estimated at about $5 million in addition to site work.

E-mail Marjorie Mader at mmader@AlmanacNews.com

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