Area schools will present loan requests

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Oct. 7, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

The State Board of Education will hear three requests for capital loans from area schools Tuesday in St. Paul.

The Laporte, Cass Lake-Bena and Red Lake school districts will each have 20 minutes to present their case as to why they need new facilities, according to Dan Bryan, manager of the Division of Management Assistance in the Department of Children, Families and Learning.

This will be the second time school officials will have pitched their projects to the state, as the three districts -- and the Caledonia, Minn., district -- tried unsuccessfully to convince the Legislature to pass a $39.9 million emergency bonding bill last session for the capital loan projects.

It did not pass mostly because the Legislature chooses not to work with bonding requests in non-bonding years. The Legislature addresses bond issues in even-numbered years and budget issues in odd-numbered years.

According to Bryan, after hearing the presentations, the State Board of Education will have until Nov. 1 to either recommend the projects to the commissioner of Children, Families and Learning or to reject them.

If the board recommends the project to the commissioner, he would then decide whether to pass the suggestions onto the governor, Bryan said.

If the board does not recommend the projects, however, the commissioner cannot forward them to the governor. But that might not kill the projects. Bryan said that local legislators will probably author bills in the Legislature for the capital loans, as well.

Cass Lake-Bena Superintendent Mary Helen Pelton, Laporte Superintendent Ted Bogda and Red Lake Superintendent Roger Schmidt are scheduled to represent the districts at Tuesday's meeting.

Each of the school districts is requesting a capital loan from the state because they have low property tax bases and property taxes are where a school district receives a majority of its funds.

According to Pelton, only about 17 percent of the Cass Lake-Bena district is taxable, and so, even if the district wanted to build a new building by itself, it couldn't generate enough taxes. That is why the state offers property tax poor district's capital loans, she said.

In Cass Lake-Bena's situation, the district wants to build a new middle school to alleviate overcrowding in both its elementary and high schools.

The district has seen its number of students grow 34 percent in 10 years. For instance, this year's kindergarten class is almost four times larger than the senior class.

If a capital loan were approved, the Cass Lake-Bena district would only have to raise about $3.3 million of the total cost. The remaining money, about $7.5 million, would be borrowed from the state.

Pelton said Wednesday, however, she isn't confident about Tuesday's meeting. She said with the increased focus of keeping the bonding bill small, it might be difficult to get the loan.

"I think it's going to be an uphill battle," she said, "because there is a great many needs for money that is received through bonding."

The Laporte School District is seeking about $7.1 million to address problems with its aging school. The school's many problems include tiny classrooms, windows and doors that do not properly shut, and that lunch is hauled from the kitchen to the gymnasium each day to feed the kids.