Mike Paston believes Tuesday's special election in the Donegal School District is about more than replacing and repairing schools.
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"This is a big-picture moment for the entire community," Paston said of the referendum, where voters will decide whether to incur a $114 million debt to upgrade the school system.
"In America we often say we wish our elected officials would focus on long-term things," Paston said. "Instead, they usually do immediate things like stimulus checks, or show up with a $2,000 check for the Boy Scout project."
However, in Donegal, Paston said, "The community has that moment on Tuesday to say, 'I want to do this.' "
Paston speaks from experience. He is president of the board of Upper Dublin School District in Montgomery County, just north of Philadelphia. Two years ago the district approved a $119 million referendum to construct a new high school.
It remains the only school district referendum that has been approved subsequent to the state Legislature's adoption of Act 1, the "Taxpayer's Relief Act," in 2006. Other districts, including Wyomissing, Tuscarora and Unionville, have seen similar initiatives fail.
Legislators passed Act 1 as a compromise in the wake of the state's decision to channel proceeds from the gaming industry to school districts. As that money came in, lawmakers wanted to restrict districts' abilities to raise taxes and established a statewide "index" to cap tax hikes.
Currently, the Act 1 index for Donegal is 5.2 percent for the 2009-2010 school year. Any additional funding for school-related projects must be approved by voters in a special election.
Referendum supporters face an uphill battle. Particularly in Pennsylvania.
In New York state, said Paston, who has researched referendums nationally, "they have a lot of them and 70 percent of [them] pass."
But because referendums are relatively rare here, "in Pennsylvania you have a special election and the voter's first question is, 'OK, who screwed up?' " Paston said. "Then they vote no because of that."
Referendums also divide communities, said Dr. G. Terry Madonna, professor of public affairs at Franklin & Marshall College and director of the school's Center for Politics and Public Affairs.
"It tends to pit retirees on fixed incomes who still pay property taxes against younger, employed workers who have children in the school district," Madonna said.
The scope and intent of the project also divides people, Madonna noted.
"Critics will often say the project is too elaborate," Madonna said. "They'll say 'You don't need to do this, scale it back.' "
That position is echoed by Kirk Wolgemuth, who served on the Donegal board from 1991 to 1999 and is active in efforts to defeat the referendum.
"We all acknowledge we need some work done," Wolgemuth said. "I don't think anybody I've talked to doesn't recognize that we need a new high school."
But he questions other components of the project, particularly the plan to construct a new elementary school in Maytown.
Athletic facilities are also controversial.
"This usually pits proponents of academic standards against alums who are part of a district's athletic traditions," Madonna said.
A too-familiar storyAll of this, and more, has occurred in Donegal. But none of it is new to Paston.
"It's been an almost identical process to ours," he said. He has witnessed the situation in Donegal firsthand because he is working as a consultant with the project's architects (Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates) to help guide it through the process.
Even opposition led by former board members, as Donegal has experienced, is routine, Paston said.
"That's very normal," Paston said. "Former board members take it as a personal attack on the way they ran things."
Both sides charging each other with disseminating misinformation is also par for the course.
It's sad, but true, Paston said, that "negative campaigning works because all you have to do is create doubt in the mind of the electorate."
There is one thing that sets the Donegal referendum apart, said Madonna.
"One angle that makes this a little bit different is the economic recession," he said.
Even that, he said, has its pros and cons.
On one hand, the recession will make voters nervous about increasing taxes.
On the other, "the construction work could have a therapeutic effect on the economy," he added. "They will be hiring people."
For now, supporters and opponents will be working through Tuesday to muster votes.
Citizens for Education hopes the referendum will succeed, and one of its founders, Ben Kling, said, "We're going door to door, we're making phone calls and trying to talk to people directly.
"My concern is if we don't get it done now, I don't know when it will get done."
He also lauded the current board because "I think they have a vision of where they want to see this district in 20 years."
Wolgemuth, of REACT (Refocus on Education, Accountability, Children and Taxpayers) did not share that view.
"Some of the portraits they [the school board and administration] have portrayed are absurd," he declared.
REACT members will be making calls to district voters and distributing literature to provide information, Wolgemuth said, about the district's current and anticipated debt burden.
Simply, REACT isn't buying the district's numbers.
As for the district itself, Paston said their role is to now get out the vote, both for and against.
"Donegal has done the best job of opening up to the community and saying, 'It is what it is,' " he said. "They've promoted an honest dialogue and said 'This will cost money.' "
The sad part, Paston said, is "You have people who legitimately say, 'I think we need a new school, but I honestly can't pay another dollar.'
"The [school taxation] system stinks," Paston said. "But it's the system we must work with."
More to come?Regardless of how the referendum turns out, Madonna and Paston agree on one thing: this one is only the beginning.
Most schools in Pennsylvania "were either built in the 1950s or during the huge boom in the '60s," Madonna said. "They're now 40 and 50 years old."
It's not just wear and tear, either. "They can't handle the demands of new technology," he said.
And then there's the reality of population growth.
Donegal has been the fastest-growing school district in Lancaster County over the past five years, and studies predict that trend will continue.
"It's a typical exurb," Madonna said, using the term that has come to describe areas on the fringes of traditional suburbs.
"People move there because the land is a little less expensive, the schools are pretty good and they want freedom from typical suburban problems. Route 283 gets you to many places. People have convenient access to their employment, and they're comfortably out of the crush."
With its tracts of available land, Lancaster County will be home to exurb growth, he said.
As more families make the move to exurbs, Madonna said, "At some point you simply have to do something about the infrastructure of the schools. I'm not going to try and tell people how they should do it, but at some point you have to upgrade the schools."
And with the Act 1 index restricting tax levels, more districts will be forced to seek funding through referendums.
Paston said, "I know it's hard for people in Donegal's discussion to understand, but it's their turn."
The tax index means what Paston calls "the year-by-year funding thing" will be gone.
"Districts are going to have to look 20 years out and say, 'We need to do this once and do it right,' " he said.
"You can be sure there will be another district within three years from now looking at a project that could cost $160 million."
Paston stresses one other thing about Tuesday's vote.
"One point worth making is even if it doesn't pass, the community must stay respectful of each other."
He said after the referendum passed in Upper Dublin, those who originally opposed the project "realized that 63 percent of their neighbors supported it and said 'This is what our community wanted' and even they are now happy about the project."
Because the issue involves educating a community's young, Paston said it must be a constant and civil discourse.
"This is a discussion of where education plays into a community," Paston said. "A community is defining how it wants education to play a role in its future."
DONEGAL DETAILSFollowing is a list of projects that would be undertaken as part of the $113,948,535 proposal to construct new facilities and upgrade existing ones in the Donegal School District
• Construct a new Maytown Elementary School to open for the 2010-11 school year.
• Construct a new high school to open by 2011-12.
• Renovate the old high school for conversion to a junior high school for grades seven and eight by 2012-13.
• Renovate Donegal Middle School for conversion to an intermediate school for grades four to six by 2013-14.
• Renovate Riverview Elementary School by 2013-14.
• Construct new athletic fields and renovate existing ones.
The cost breakdown is: $102.8 million for school building construction and renovation; $10.7 million for the new, improved and expanded athletic fields; and $443,564 for a new IT, maintenance and central receiving facility.
To finance the work, the district is proposing to borrow a series of five 20-year construction bonds in the amount of $25 million in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013 and $14 million in 2015.
According to district figures, the average residential property is assessed at $117,000, and taxes on that property would increase $36 next year if the referendum is approved.
That increase will rise annually until the average homeowner will pay $624 more in property taxes in 2017. It will remain at that level until 2030, when it will begin to decrease as the bonds are paid off.
That tax rate is solely to fund the project and does not include taxes levied annually for normal operating expenses. The district's tax index (the maximum increase in annual taxes) was set by the state at 5.2 percent for the 2009-2010 school year.
According to information provided by the district, taxes are likely to double in 10 years, even without the project.
The tax rate also does not include revenues returned to homeowners from state gaming funds. Last year Donegal homeowners received a tax exemption of $143.
The district would also be eligible for a 20 percent reimbursement from the state on new construction and major renovations. Repairs to existing facilities are not eligible for any reimbursement from the state.
Chip Smedley is a staff writer for the Sunday News. E-mail him at csmedley@lnpnews.com.
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