This is an email sent by School Board Chair Nancy Nilson to our legislators.

Dear Legislators,

I feel the need to correct some misinformation that is being circulated about Duluth ’s Long Range Facilities Plan.  First, it is not nearly $.5 billion.  It is $257 million, with inflation included over the 5 year construction period it is $293 million.  Yes, with interest over 20 years the total goes up to $407 million.  When the projects being discussed for this years bonding bill are being discussed, I don’t think the interest is tacked onto the project when discussing the cost.  When people buy homes they don’t look at the cost of the house plus the total they will be paying in interest to determine if they should make the investment.  Very few people would be buying or building anything.  I haven’t heard the cost of the DECC hockey arena with the interest included as the price of the new facility. 

In addition, the cost to the taxpayer isn’t $257 million it is about $125 million, which is what the property tax increase is based upon.  We will be selling excess property and wisely using the savings from the plan to pay down the debt.  This helps the taxpayer out tremendously.   The financial package can be explained in greater detail in person for any of you that would like us to come down and have a session explaining it further. 

When we talked to the public during the many community meetings and the newspaper informed the public as well, we told them the cost would be about $9.10 per month for $125,100 home (that is the median assessed home in Duluth ).   When people received their tax statements that is what occurred.  It is not excessive.  It doesn’t even bring us to the average amount contributed by 35 non-metro cities in the state of Minnesota based on the effective school tax rates.

The second point I’d like to clarify has to do with the closing of Nettleton Elementary School .  The number of students in the Nettleton and Grant area has decreased to the point that this area does not need two schools.  The two schools are less than 1 mile from each other (7 blocks).  They need to be combined.  When trying to decide which site would be better suited to be the site of the school, we included people from this area of town in this decision.  When all was said and done, the Grant site was chosen primarily because of the safety of the students.  Nettleton is located on a very steep hill.  The site only has 3.3 acres.  The playground area is built in tiers because of the hill.  There is not much green space and we’ve had to put woodchips in the playground area because the grass won’t grow.  The turnaround area is small and there is inadequate parking at the site. 

The Grant site is flat, is at the end of a quiet street, it consists of 7.8 acres, the school district owns the Grant recreation field, and the play area is more conducive to children.  We will be fixing up the older portion of Grant and adding an addition, which will include a new gym.   Even though we are buying additional property at Grant, it is intended to allow us to make the school site and the recreation area easier to use for school purposes.  The purchases will bring us up to 9.1 acres.  At Nettleton we’d have to buy many more homes to obtain the necessary acreage and it would still not be as conducive to a school setting as the Grant site.

  I know there are people that don’t put the safety aspect as the number one concern for school sites and have been upset that Nettleton wasn’t chosen over Grant.  In many people’s opinion the safety of the children trumps all.  The Nettleton building will not go to waste.  It will be sold, not torn down.  None of the buildings will be sold to another school that will compete against us.

The third piece of misinformation circulating is in regards to Johnson Controls obtaining the contract without a bid process.  That is not true.  I personally was on the committee that selected Johnson Controls and there was a bid process that occurred.  Originally eight companies submitted proposals and it was narrowed down to three based on their qualifications.  I listened to the three companies do their presentations as to why they should be selected to lead us through this process and reviewed their proposals.  Johnson Controls was selected because of their experience and knowledgeable staff members ie. mechanical engineers, architects, and project managers.  We wanted a company that could take us from the design all the way through the implementation.  We didn’t want one company saying it could be done for a certain amount of money and then another company coming in saying there is no way it could be done for that.  Johnson Controls is contractually obligated to stay within the budget presented.

Please make note of these pieces of information so if you have a need to respond to citizens, you won’t be passing on misinformation.  The Duluth School District did a comprehensive review of this school district’s current as well as future needs and developed a plan to take us well into the future.  We understand there is a need to consolidate buildings, fix up buildings, and build new facilities.  We have done a very thorough job in the creation of this plan.  When we passed this plan, we said we would be changing the boundaries or creating ways to make sure we did not leave any school with too high of a percentage of low-income / minority population.  If you have any questions, we’d be glad to come down to St. Paul and give you a presentation or just answer questions you may have.   Thank you.

Sincerely,

Nancy Nilsen

Chair of the Duluth School Board