THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 24, 1995 TAG: 9512220210
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
Right now at Oscar Smith High School, students take their classes in the safety and comfort of the main building. No one has to trudge outside in the cold to portable classrooms. There are no trailers hogging precious space on sports fields.
That could change next year.
Enrollment is growing so fast in Oscar Smith's attendance zone, school officials might have to buy portable classrooms to help hold all the kids.
``We may be able to get away without it, depending on what we can do with the scheduling of classes,'' said Janet M. Andrejco, Oscar Smith's principal.
But eventually, no matter what schedule shuffling Andrejco and her assistants are able to do, Oscar Smith will exceed its capacity within the next several years. School officials already are planning an addition to the building, which just opened last year.
City leaders are aware of the dilemma, and they don't like it. But Chesapeake is in a quandary.
Growth is putting tremendous pressure on schools to expand. School officials estimate it would cost $172.9 million over the next five years to build enough classrooms to house all the students who will come knocking in the future.
The way things look now, the city can't afford that price.
The city manager's capital improvement plan, released in November, proposes to leave $48.2 million in school building projects in limbo, including Oscar Smith's addition. Those projects would be approved later if the city is on sound enough financial footing to pay for them.
That means the school system would be guaranteed $124.7 million through the year 2000 to build new schools and renovate or add onto old ones.
Claude A. Wright, the city's director of budget, said all city departments are having to tighten their budgets for building projects.
In every department except one, the city manager has proposed spending less on capital projects over the next five years than City Council already has approved. The city's total capital improvement budget for 1996 through 2000 would total about $578.2 million.
Wright said that's because he and other budget planners are trying to avoid getting Chesapeake into too much debt; the city must issue bonds to pay for building projects.
The way things are going, Wright said, Chesapeake already will exceed the debt limit set by City Council - $2,400 per capita - by the year 1998. If all financial conditions stay the same, Wright said, the city would be about $2,500 per capita in debt for building projects in 1998.
City Council could just raise the debt limit. But that might pose problems for the city's AA bond rating, a good grade given to Chesapeake by agencies that judge cities' creditworthiness. A favorable bond rating allows the city to borrow money cheaper, much like good credit allows consumers to get better interest rates on simple loans and credit cards.
``If you go too far on your debt ratios, it could lead to a downgrading of your bond rating,'' Wright said.
The city's financial picture could brighten in the meantime, Wright said. If tax revenues or the population increase beyond what's estimated, the city may be able to handle a higher debt load. More school projects could be funded.
``We've got two more years to look at this problem,'' he said. ``Hopefully, we'll be in a position at that time to issue some more debt. I don't see the needs going away.
``The other thing that could happen is that the school enrollment could slow down,'' he said. ``We just don't know that. That's why we update this thing (the capital improvement budget) every year.''
But school officials believe enrollment is going to continue to climb. And they're worried that hard-won progress in solving crowding problems will be reversed.
The school system, with its stock of more than 300 portable classrooms, purchased only 10 new ones this year, compared to 50-60 in years past. The School Board is working toward reducing the fleet.
``In order to do that, we are going to continue to need to have funding in a timely manner, as they (City Council) have been able to do in the past couple of years,'' said Lenard J. Wright, the school system's program administrator for planning and development.
``I'm concerned,'' he said. ``I understand the situation, because it's like any family. You've got X amount of dollars, and you've got to spend what you've got on the things that you need. And right now, we're caught between a need for classrooms and, at least as the city manager is saying, the dollar amount we've got to spend on those classrooms.''
City Council is set to begin discussing the proposed capital plan after the holidays.
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE SCHOOLS CHESAPEAKE CITY COUNCIL by CNB