Sewage treatment plant’s location likely to have impact on school districts

There’s a new wrinkle in the debate over where to put the city’s new sewage treatment plant.

It has to do with school district boundaries, growth and the likelihood of helping Baldwin schools more than schools in the Lawrence district.

“This is an issue that never would have dawned on me,” Douglas County Commissioner Bob Johnson said Thursday during a quarterly summit that brought together members of the County Commission, Lawrence City Commission and Lawrence school board.

Plans call for building a $76 million plant somewhere between the city’s east and west borders and roughly one mile north or south of the Wakarusa River by 2011. To meet the 2011 deadline, the location needs be chosen by summer 2006.

Michael Orth, a spokesman for the engineering firm Black & Veatch, noted that because of the way school district boundaries are configured, most of the growth spurred by an east-of-U.S. Highway 59 site would benefit the Baldwin school district more than the Lawrence school district.

Conversely, a west-of-U.S. Highway 59 location likely would benefit schools in the Lawrence district.

“That’s the primary difference between east and west sites,” Orth said. He asked the group for help figuring how much weight to assign the issue.

“I prefer we pursue growth that’s within Lawrence’s school district,” said County Commissioner Charles Jones, calling the school district “a unifying force within the community.”

But City Commissioner Mike Amyx said that before limiting the site to a west-of-U.S. Highway 59 location, he would want to sort through other variables – topography, for example – that might affect the city’s costs.

Amyx said he didn’t like the idea of Lawrence’s growth benefiting the Baldwin school district, but he didn’t want to pass on avoidable costs either.

“My first concern is the ratepayer,” he said.

The group agreed to devote its next meeting, which will be sometime in mid-February, to the issue.

“This has serious implications for us,” said Lawrence Supt. Randy Weseman.

A similar situation, he said, already exists with development in northwest Lawrence that’s in the Perry-Lecompton school district.

“I’m guessing that every one of those kids goes to a school in Lawrence and I’m OK with that,” Weseman said. “We go along with it because it’s the right thing to do. These are people who live in Lawrence.”

But Weseman said he would oppose letting the situation repeat itself with the Baldwin district.

To accommodate growth, Weseman said, the district already is “looking at property south of the river.” He did not reveal where.

“This is an issue that’s on our radar,” he said.

Baldwin Supt. Jim White said he was unaware of the site’s potential impact on his district.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” White said. “We’ve not been in the loop. The thing to do, I guess, is to let everybody sort things out.”

In Kansas, most of a school district’s budget is based on the per-pupil aid it receives from the state. They’re supplemented with local property taxes.

The Lawrence school district receives per-pupil aid for its students who live in the Perry-Lecompton district.

“We’re probably talking about 25 kids,” Weseman said.

The district does not receive the property tax paid on the students’ residences. It was unclear Thursday how much the arrangement costs the Lawrence district.