Will it go or will it stay under different management? That’s the question Sumner School District’s board of directors asked themselves regarding the Sumner High School pool during a lengthy discussion toward the end of their monthly meeting Wednesday. An answer was postponed until the August 17 meeting, but Board Directors Jeff DeMarre and Rick Hendricks were selected as school board members of a committee to determine the best course of action.
The question has been asked before in many forms for many years that took a particularly concrete turn as district Director of Athletics and Activities Tim Thomsen presented two proposals to the board.
“Your decision will be the difference between $90,000 and $38,000,” Thomsen told the board.
The $90,000 per year option would see the pool’s day-to-day operation adopted by third party Bonney Lake Aquatics. Under the lease agreement as currently written, Sumner School District would continue to pay the monthly electrical costs incurred by the facility, as well as a one time payment of $5,000 toward the cost of a boiler replacement. The $90,000 doesn’t represent a fixed per-year cost so much as a catch-all maximum, Thomsen said in an interview Friday.
“The estimated costs of what it would be to pay for electrical was $81,000,” Thomsen said. “Now, [board director] Jeff DeMarre, who is an electrical engineer in his job outside the board, he asked for us to get an inventory of all the electrical items in the pool… and he looked at the costs. His figure was somewhere near $45,000. His estimate on our pool… was far less. So it’s a bit of a gray area.”
An anonymous benefactor has also offered $10,000 per year, for five years, to keep the pool open. The financial gift was not accounted into the leasing option, but would help offset those costs.
The $38,000 per year option would see members of the high schools’ swim teams bussed to the Weyerhauser King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way. The $38,000 figure included the highest possible estimate on transportation for both boys’ and girls’ seasons and a rental cost approximated at $14,000, Thomsen said.
Board directors had criticisms and questions on both arrangements. The aquatic center option additionally placed an intangible time element on the decision-making process.
“They [the aquatic center] have an open slot right now, and there’s no guarantee it will still be there if we’re at the next board meeting and we decide that’s the option we want,” Thomsen said.
Criticisms of the option to lease the pool to Bonney Lake Aquatics orbited around issues of liability and the physical state of the pool facility.
Thomsen’s presentation to the board had been immediately preceded by a facilities report and analysis by BLRB Architects, PCS Structural Solutions and BCE Engineers, relayed by district Director of Facilities Mark Baumgarten.
The report cited a number of issues with the pool facility, including a settling foundation, resulting cracked architectural finishes, American Disability Act non-compliance in the seating area, a potentially out-of-tolerance pool tank, lighting glare on the pool surface, and loose wires on Audio-Visual equipment.
Board Director Greg Hanon desired, because of the multiple issues in the facilities report, a clearer sense of party liability in any lease agreement with Bonney Lake Aquatics, he said.
“Basically we’re taking a facility we can’t run… and hoping they can do it better,” Hanon said. “Hopefully we won’t get to where a water pipe is breaking and they’re out the door.”
Hanon expressed skepticism that a third party would be able to bear the brunt of a boiler replacement’s costs, even with the $5,000 from the district.
“What if there’s an injury not related to operations for the pool, and it instead has to do with a preexisting issue?” he said. “We should know if we’re liable for that.”
Conversely, Board Director Mike Pavlik wanted to make sure Bonney Lake Aquatics had an exit clause if the facilities failed from no fault of their own, he said.
Board Director Hendricks indicated he would prefer to sign a lease agreement over bussing students to Federal Way. He referred specifically to the aspect of the contract where the deal would be reviewed for renewal annually over the next five years.
“[Regarding a lease agreement] if we do this, we’re only in it for seven months,” he said.
The important factor to consider was the interim to a longer-term solution, Thomsen said.
“The biggest priority for us is the long term solution,” Thomsen said, referring to the YMCA pool facilities planned for construction in Bonney Lake and Sumner. “We’re looking for the option that will get us to the long term solution.”
Board President Sherm Voiles said the board should also consider the viability of including the aquatics program.
“I think we’re making an assumption of keeping our aquatics programs open,” he said. “[Discontinuing aquatics] is an option we have to look at [to complete an exhaustive examination of program costs].”
Though the bussing option was the less expensive of the two options, the time commitment of commuting to and from Federal Way could lead to lesser participation and a greater cost-to-benefit ratio of the swimming program, Voiles said.
In the 2010-2011 school year, the high school swim programs had a combined participation of more than 100 students, Thomsen said.
In other school board news:
• The board meeting was the first to have Craig Spencer participating as superintendent.
• Four audience members commented on the separation agreement between the board and former Superintendent Gil Mendoza. Two of the commentators were against Mendoza’s departure, and two supported the school board.
• Executive Director of Business Services Debbie Campbell led the budget hearing for the coming school year, presenting the close-to-being-finalized funding amounts. Look for an article regarding the budget in the Courier-Herald’s July 27 Education section.
• Erin LaVerdiere presented a summary of the national Common Core curriculum standards scheduled to be adopted by Washington state, and how they will likely affect the district.
• Sarah Briehl presented a schedule of advancing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math requirements for the school district.
• LaVerdiere also presented three student waiver days, September 6, January 30 and March 28, for approval by the board. Teachers will undergo training on topics such as the new Common Core standards on those days. The measure met with some disagreement by board directors due to the reduced class time it would give students. It passed 3-2.
