RICHARDSON NOT HAPPY WITH SENATE'S ACTIONS COMPROMISE MEANS LESS SCHOOL FUNDING

Setback for APS

$90 Million Approved For New Schools

BY GABRIELA C. GUZMAN AND ANDREA SCHOELLKOPF
Journal Staff Writers
 

    SANTA FE — Albuquerque school officials are scrambling after the Legislature approved only about a third of what was expected for construction in high growth districts.
    Districts in those areas will now compete for about $90 million for new schools instead of the $290 million they were promised before the legislative session.
    Now more than five school districts with growing student bodies and districts with prioritized construction projects must apply for a portion of the $90 million approved by lawmakers Thursday.
    Albuquerque Public Schools had expected to get about $115 million of the $290 million the governor had sought. It was to go toward two new high schools on the West Side of the city.
    "We need to state for the record we are not going to be building two high schools by the year 2008," APS board member Robert Lucero said Thursday evening at a district capital outlay committee meeting. "… We needed $115 million from Santa Fe and that is not going to be happening."
    "The governor got out and said `listen, we're going to build those schools,' '' Lucero said. "This is going to be really tough on the community out on the West Side."
    APS Superintendent Elizabeth Everitt said dis- trict staff will look at contingency plans to see what can be built.
    "We have to do something to relieve those schools," Everitt said.
    APS lobbyist Alan Armijo said if the district gets enough money to finish the Northwest high school, it can return to the Legislature next year for help building the Southwest high school.
    Districts in high-growth areas also include Las Cruces, Gadsden, Los Lunas, Rio Rancho and Deming.
    The omnibus capital outlay measure, Senate Bill 450, also stretches the appropriation over three years instead of two.
    Decreasing the pot of money and extending it over a longer period of time was part of a compromise between the Governor's Office and the legislators, said James Jimenez, secretary for the Department of Finance and Administration.
    Even with the decreased amount, Gov. Bill Richardson said he still hopes to have the needed schools built by 2007.
    "We are taking care of building schools in areas that are growing very fast," Richardson said in a news conference Thursday.
    None of the $90 million is earmarked, so each district must apply for its share.
    "At least it's some of the money we had applied for," Armijo said.
    "Some of the other districts are not going to apply. They are not that far along," he said later Thursday evening at the APS committee meeting.
    For much of the session Armijo fought a two-front war — describing the explosive growth on the city's West Side and trying to change a perception by some legislators that APS has not exhausted all its taxing possibilities to construct the two new schools.
    Albuquerque is not bonded to capacity. But residents pay higher property taxes than many areas because they are taxed by more entities than many other communities.
    Some senators have contended the $290 million would have provided a handout for APS, which they said failed to plan for obvious growth on its West Side.
    Armijo said legislators outside of Albuquerque were critical of APS for not raising taxes to build schools and said this would amount to "free money" for APS.
    "We got caught in the middle of disagreements between legislators and the governor," he said.
    Under SB 450, the money comes with a catch. If the districts' applications are accepted, and they take the money, they must forgo future allocations until they repay that money.
    "You either pay now, or pay later," said Sen. Cynthia Nava, D-Las Cruces, the sponsor of legislation creating the funding program and an associate superintendent in Gadsden. Her bill passed the House on Thursday morning.
    Ron Haugen, superintendent of the Gadsden Independent School District, said Nava's bill provides another funding option for property-poor districts like his.
    "We are always behind the wheel," said Haugen.
    Every year for the last four years, a new school has opened in Gadsden, which abuts El Paso to the south and Las Cruces to the north.
    But some legislators questioned whether any districts would even apply for such a program, given the limited amount and the requirement to pay it back.
    Another unknown remains: Will the new program throw open the 1999 Zuni lawsuit that required New Mexico to dramatically change the way capital outlay is allocated?
    Supporters of the new program say "no."
    "We worked very hard all session long, so that it would not run afoul of the Zuni lawsuit," Jimenez said.
    The Zuni lawsuit required the state to set up a system that made sure capital outlay money was distributed equitably to districts with limited tax bases, mostly on federal lands.
    However, Armijo said, "We're not sure that's going to satisfy the Zuni lawsuit."
    An APS capital strategy committee is about to make recommendations to the school board that will help find money, board member Mary Lee Martin said. Some of the approaches that have been mentioned include impact fees and increasing property taxes.
    "This city needs to come together," Martin said. "And here we are. Let's do the best we can to make that happen."
    In other capital appropriations, schools across the state received a total of $59 million in direct appropriations for various projects, with close to $15 million going to APS.

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