Clare Jellick has written on her blog what we all knew, but that the school board wouldn’t admit before now — that the district has money to build two new schools, one on the East Bluff and one in the North Valley. They just don’t want to build two schools:

At the end of Thursday’s forum, I approached School Board president David Gorenz to talk about the available funding. He recognized that the [$40 million worth of] PBC money is out there but said the district wants to use it for “other projects throughout the district.”

And of course, since the money they get from the Public Building Commission (PBC) is available without a referendum, there’s no accountability to the taxpayers on how it’s spent. (You can thank Aaron Schock for pushing through the bill that made it possible.)

So what are these “other projects throughout the district” on which they want to spend the PBC money? Well, of the $28 million of PBC funds they’ve already requested, $21 million is for the Harrison replacement school. According to a Sept. 29 Journal Star article:

$5.2 million in PBC bonding authority will be used to update the former Social Security Administration building at 2628 N. Knoxville Ave. It will house a program for at-risk youths.

The district’s Central Office, 3202 N. Wisconsin Ave., will be renovated with $1.8 million from the PBC. [emphasis mine]

So, $1.8 million for the district’s office building. Remember that. Let’s go back to Clare’s blog for a second and look at something District Treasurer Guy Cahill has said:

The district is planning one large school at 120,000 square feet that would cost between $20 and $21 million. Two smaller schools would add at least $1.2 million to that construction budget [emphasis mine], district treasurer Guy Cahill has said.

Setting aside for a moment the folly of acquiring another building that needs over $5 million in renovation when the district already has plenty of buildings — including the old Blaine-Sumner school they recently renovated for more office space — and in fact are supposedly trying to get rid of buildings, let’s just look at their office building rehab plans. I think it’s safe to conclude that the district feels it’s more important to spend $1.8 million to fix up their office building than spend $1.2 million to build two smaller schools, which is what the parents and teachers want, what their own Master Facilities Plan called for, and which has been proven to improve student achievement.

So much for interim Associate Deputy Superintendent Fischer’s statement at the last community forum that “our students deserve the very best.” I guess they only deserve the very best of what’s left over after our administrators get their offices renovated and redecorated.