Great Valley's $6,632,000.00 farm field

School Board spends $6,632,000.00 of our money on 9-15-08

With virtually no public knowledge or input, the School Board has authorized the purchase of 49.4 acres of land at a cost of $6,632,000.00.

Here we go again……………….on the one year anniversary of the School Board’s approval of the Superintendent’s lucrative contract without adequate public notice, the School Board has once again sidestepped the public and made a $6,632,000.00 decision behind closed doors.

It was only one year ago when the Board gave the public obscure notice on a Friday night that on Monday they would be voting on the Superintendent’s new lucrative contract. The only notice given was an annotation in the Board’s meeting agenda buried in the GVSD website. Even then, when over 100 taxpayers showed up and asked for a rejection of the contract or at least a 30 day delay in the decision, the Board ignored the public and approved the contract anyway.
Now, one year later, the Board strikes again. They did the same thing with the notice for the agenda item to purchase the property. On Friday they buried the agenda in the website for the meeting on Monday. This virtually ensured that the public would have little if any input in the decision. The few who attended the meeting then discovered that the Board had already made up their minds before the meeting.
Obviously, the School Board has learned nothing from their fiasco of last year when they approved the Superintendent’s contract. Based on this repeat performance, we therefore have to conclude that the School Board does not care about the public and does not want the public to know what they are doing.

What happened here?

At their School Board meeting of 9-2-08 the Board published the agenda for the 9-15-08 meeting. The agenda made no mention of a vote for the purchase of land or anything even approaching that subject.
On Friday, 9-12-08, the agenda for the Monday, 9-15-08, meeting was posted on the GVSD website, buried in the School Board website section, and the agenda was different than the original one. It added a recommendation “that the Board adopt a resolution authorizing the purchase of approximately 49.4 acres of land within the Great Valley School District……….at a price not to exceed $6,632,000.”
No mention of this land purchase recommendation was made on the Home Page of the GVSD website. No handouts were given to students to take home. No mailing went out to the public. No phone calls were made by the District or the School Board. No notice was placed in the newspapers.
At the meeting on 9-15-08 there was a handout for the public which was the detailed “Resolution of the Great Valley School District” to acquire the land. It was therefore obvious that this decision was already made and any input at that time was useless. A few members of the public in attendance voiced their objections and concerns regarding this large expenditure of tax dollars with no facts to justify the purchase; but it was obvious that it was a futile effort.
The School Board voted unanimously to make the purchase.

Click here to view the Resolution passed by the Board and the site analysis report which lists environmental and site concerns

Click here to view an overhead photo of the property purchased

What are the Facts ?

The School Board PRESENTED LITTLE IF ANY FACTS to justify this purchase. There were no projections for student population growth. There were no facts presented regarding WHAT would be built on the land. There was no projection as to when we would need to build on the land. There were no facts presented as to why we needed 49.4 acres. There were no facts presented regarding any budget or planning to spend $6,632,000 for the land.
The School Board has been discussing this “deal” behind closed doors since at least July of this year but has not told the public anything.
The School Board has had no public discussions about the need for land and new school buildings.
The School Board has not discussed the need for more land and new school buildings at any meetings in at least the past year and a half.
The School Board has no plans for building anything on this land in the foreseeable future.
The School Board has not sought public input on the need for more land and new school buildings.
As of today, 9-18-08, there is still nothing on the GVSD webpage about this purchase.
There is nothing in the current School District budget or School District plans for the purchase of property or the spending of this amount of money.
- The School Board will take the $6,632,000 out of the Capital Reserve Fund (See our other website article describing the origins and use of this fund). This fund was described in the past as the School Board “Slush” fund by a Board member, which is an accurate description. This fund has had no budget and has been filled with $21,000,000 over 7 years with money that was designated for operating expenses, not capital projects. Yet, this money was not spent on operating expenses and became a surplus, so the School Board dumped it in the Capital Reserve Budget every year for the past 7 years. This all occurred while they continued to raise our taxes 45% during those years.
- There is no budget plan for the money in this fund and hence no plan to purchase land this year, or any year in the future.
- Therefore, the School Board has not planned for this purchase in any budget, which means there was no plan to obtain the money for the land, and no plan to spend the money for the land.
The land to be purchased:
- Is off Bacton Hill Road.
- Is currently being leased to a farmer for growing crops, which means the School District will now become a landlord and will have to manage the land since there are no plans now to develop it.
- It cost $6,632,000, or approximately $135,000 per acre.
- There is no water service on the property
- There is a natural gas pipeline and a petroleum pipeline traversing the land which raises environmental contamination and right of way developmental concerns.
- There is a former railroad line across the property which raises additional environmental concerns regarding contaminants such as herbicides, arsenic, lead, etc.
- The property is near the Foote Mineral Site which is a Superfund clean-up site which raises further contamination concerns.
- There are sink hole problems on the land.
- The documentation indicates the possibility of the School District building a Community Center on the property which raises the question regarding how our tax money will be used to develop this property (if ever) and what other conditions may have been agreed to in order to complete the purchase of the land.

What did the School Board say?

As mentioned above, the School Board provided little, if any facts at the meeting to justify this very significant expense.
There was no discussion or debate between the School Board members
Various School Board members merely made comments such as:
- The land was offered to them by the owner
- It is a good deal
- We are getting a good price
- We need to think about the future
- We have no plans to build anything in the near future
- This will not affect the taxpayers’ taxes (It is taxpayers money they are spending!!!!)
- The Board could not talk about this with the public because it could affect the price of the land (How about talking with the public and debating whether we NEED more land now and whether we want to spend millions now ?)

Our Conclusions:

The School Board is fiscally irresponsible with our tax dollars. They made a “gut” decision to spend $6,632,000 of our tax dollars based on an offer from a land owner with no basis in facts or factual planning and no input from the public about anything.

This land purchase should be stopped for all the reasons listed above.

The School Board does not care about the public and continues to try to keep information and decisions away from the public.

Contact the School Board

Contact the School Board with your opinion on this issue via email using this link

School Board Members