Leaky roof is symptom of school budget woes

When heavy snow and rain fell last week on Sisters, some of it didn't stop at the roof of the Sisters Elementary School. It went right on through the flat roof of the gym, serving only to remind school officials again of the district's money problems.

Before the storm hit school board chairman Bill Reed was complaining that the budget has been so tight that the district had to make a choice between school maintenance and teaching staff. He said the board opted for retaining staff positions and let "important maintenance like fixing leaky roofs" go. The rains came soon afterward, as though summoned to illustrate the point.

There were leaks throughout the district, including one at Cloverdale where a porch roof simply split under the weight of rain-sodden snow. Major leaks occurred at the elementary school. Superintendent Steve Swisher said the problem was in an eight-year-old roof that was supposed to be good for 30 years.

Getting significant repair work done on school roofs may have to wait a long time.

Swisher said the district had planned to include maintenance project costs in a school bond package next March. The constitutional amendment brought on by Measure 47 cuts such projects out of bond measures altogether, except in major natural catastrophes like earthquakes and major floods.

The district had hoped to ask voters to approve the sale of bonds to finance school construction to alleviate overcrowding. The maintenance projects were to be included. The bond issue has been postponed altogether due to another provision in the constitutional amendment that nullifies money measures that are voted on by fewer than 51 percent of registered voters.

The construction bond measure has been put off until the general election in the fall of 1998. The maintenance costs have been forced back to the school general fund, already creaking under the pressures of tax limits imposed by the five-year-old Measure 5.