I’m so glad you asked that question.
I just reread my column in the Trib and thought this should have been more clearly spelled out. Since the District was confident it could “save” five million because of the Red Plan it damned well better do it. That’s because for the next twenty years that five million is part of what is being used to pay off bond holders for Red Plan building bonds. That’s one fourth of the total annual bonds Duluth will be paying off.
As I explained, roughly half of the five million comes from reduced staff. Most of the rest comes from JCI’s promise that the Red Plan will lower our energy costs. If those energy costs aren’t lowered the bond holders will still expect Duluth taxpayers to pay off the bonds. That means the School District will have to cut deeper into our staff to make up any non realized energy savings.
One problem for the District was immediately apparent. The promised energy cuts, even if they are real, can’t begin until all the Red Plan buildings are completed. But we had to start paying the bond holders immediately. That means that for the first four or five years of construction, well before any energy savings could kick in, we’ve had to cover that two million annually to make up for the currently non existent energy savings. Where did we get it? From staff cuts or as Ann Wasson likes to call it “savings.” The four million Ann says we’ve saved is about two years worth of unrealized energy savings.
So, until JCI gives us those big energy savings we will have to keep cramming more kids into classrooms and stripping down our staff. If the energy savings fail to materialize or fall short we will still pay a price in reduced staff for the next twenty years.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the students we’ve lost to Proctor and Hermantown and elsewhere didn’t come back and we once again found ourselves having to heat excess space – Red Plan space? That’s the space the Chamber of Commerce and JCI used to justify the Red Plan to begin with. Why, we’d have to have JCI return to tear down all the new schools with their wasteful excess space and rebuild us smaller and more energy efficient schools.
