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UHS (Unionville High School) Renovation project and important school district news. The majority of the Board continues to agree that the UHS project, as presented, is the right one for our students and community. The debate, therefore, has become not what to do but rather how to get it done. On Feb. 25, we voted 8-1 to put a $30 million referendum question on the ballot on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 (the regularly scheduled Primary Election date). As you may remember, the dollar amount of the previous referendum question was $62.5 million. This represented the entire cost of the UHS building project (that is, renovations, expansion, fields, site work, parking, soft costs, escalation costs, etc.). While the costs of the project remain the same, this new board action would reduce the burden on the taxpayers by asking them to approve the district borrowing up to $30 million (half as much as before). The additional debt would be structured so that it would not result in a property tax increase above the normal inflationary increases allowed by Act 1. That is, the additional costs would be contained within the regular operating budget. Some community members have commented that this action neglects to respect the voice of the voters after the last election because we have not cut the project. I respectfully, disagree. This action acknowledges that the voters wanted lower overall property taxes than would have been the case under the referendum proposed last year. We have chosen not to scale the project back further because we do not want to repeat the past mistakes of spending “less than needed” and then having to waste taxpayer money by correcting for under-spending in the original planning stages. The Board recently hired EHL Consulting to do a feasibility study to assess the likelihood of having a successful capital fundraising campaign. Robert Evans (of EHL) presented his findings to the School Board on Feb. 25th. He stated that a $20 million capital campaign was feasible. Even if we were to only be able to raise a portion of that – it would serve to further offset the costs of the project, and therefore the tax burden. Regardless of how the UHS project is funded, I recognize that the project is costly (despite the fact that our project compares very favorably to other recently completed building projects in the area). A community member recently asked why it seemed the Diocese of Philadelphia was able to build a new high school for so much less. I share this with you because I think it is a very good question. Private schools have a great deal more flexibility with regard to building projects than do public schools. Public schools are required to comply with prevailing wage laws (while private schools are not). Additionally, state law requires us to bid any building project through 4 prime contractors (General, Mechanical, HVAC, and Plumbing Contractors). Private institutions can (and do) bid to a single contractor who has control over the whole project. As a result, private school building projects are much more efficiently handled and on average cost 25-30% less than public school building projects.