Topeka ? Some parents are upset the Topeka school district doesn’t have enough money to hire teachers for 19 new classrooms built with bond issue proceeds.

The district had planned to use the new classrooms to reduce the student-to-teacher ratio in second-grade-classrooms to 18-to-1 from a limit of 25-to-1.

But bond money can only pay for facilities, not employees. And the $20 per-student increase in state funding that the 2002 Legislature approved wasn’t enough to pay for the new teachers, an estimated expense of $665,000, said Brad Stauffer, the district’s spokesman.

“We shared during the bond information process that there was a possibility this may happen,” Stauffer said. “It’s kind of like the chicken and egg: In order to reduce second-grade class size, what must come first, the staff or the classrooms? We thought it would be best to build the classrooms first and try to staff them if the money became available.”

The second-grade classrooms were built with part of the proceeds of a $24.5 million bond issue approved in April 2001. The bulk of the bond issue paid for a $17.5 million sports park on the southwest corner of the former Topeka State Hospital grounds.

The cost of building and equipping the 19 new second-grade classrooms was just more than $3 million.

The rest of the bond issue proceeds went to pay for 22 other classrooms that will be used to implement a districtwide, all-day kindergarten program and maintain an 18-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio at the first-grade level. District officials say the teachers needed to expand all-day kindergarten and keep first-grade classes small.

“I think it’s pretty sad,” said Lou Saadi, president of Williams Science and Fine Arts Magnet School’s booster team. “The general person on the street would think it’s stupid to build classrooms and not have money to staff them. Most people would assume that the bond money would cover that expense. They (district officials) need to fund what they promised the people they would do.”