Carlton heading toward consolidation cliff

The Carlton school board this week firmed up its position when it comes to the current standoff with the Wrenshall board and possible consolidation between the two neighboring districts. On Monday, the Carlton board agreed in a committee of the whole discussion that it would vote at its regular meeting Monday on the question of debt sharing should a consolidation take place. Should the board vote to not share debt among all taxpayers in a new district, consolidation could be off the table.

At least half of the six-member board indicated Monday that they wanted to vote on the question of consolidating or not next week. Superintendent John Engstrom talked those members off that ledge during the online meeting, saying that taking a stance on consolidation would make it difficult for the boards to bring back consolidation as new members join in January.

“We started it, we should finish it,” said longtime Carlton board member Tim Hagenah. He began the conversation about ditching consolidation altogether. “This plan is done and over with,” he said. “One district needs to say we’re going to go our separate ways.”

The Wrenshall board has stood firm, saying that any merger should include putting each district’s debt into one pot, with taxpayers in the new district paying the same rate in school tax. The Carlton board has blanched at the idea, noting in a study it conducted earlier this year that under shared debt, Carlton residents would pay more overall tax. If the roughly $38 million consolidation plan — with improvements made to the elementary in Carlton and the school in Wrenshall — were to go through, a taxpayer in Carlton with a $150,000 home would pay about $234 a year if debts stayed with current district taxpayers. With a pooled debt, that same Carlton taxpayer could pay $265, a difference of $31 a year.

The Wrenshall board did not join with Carlton this past summer in seeking out the latest tax impact numbers, saying that numbers would change by the end of this year, and they have. Wrenshall has lowered its tax levy significantly for next year, by just over 16 percent.

“Levies and tax impacts have already changed,” said Wrenshall board member Janaki Fisher-Merritt. As far as consolidation, he added, “nothing has changed with us.”

Wrenshall board chairwoman Michelle Blanchard said Wrenshall would keep its stance on debt sharing, saying it “only makes sense that everyone (in a new district) pay the same amount. If Carlton supports consolidation, they should uphold debt sharing.”

Carlton voting on debt sharing Monday, with a definite lean toward not pooling debts, would “indicate baby steps toward a line in the sand,” Blanchard said. It would likely lead to the end of consolidation talks. “I don’t think we’re going to waver from that,” she added.

All of the back and forth is just another chapter in a decades-long struggle, and failure to date, between the adjacent districts reaching an agreement to become one district, despite the fact that both struggle with declining enrollment.

Engstrom wondered aloud what the board would gain from voting on anything regarding the future of consolidation. He said a new year and new board should decide on where Carlton will end up. “I think we just leave it alone,” he said.

“I can understand this board wanting to make a stand on debt sharing,” Engstrom said.

Board members seemed to agree, but Hagenah asked “What are we afraid of?” He said he is “confused on why it’s so hard to say this plan is a bad plan.”

He, along with Sue Karp and Sam Ojibway, eventually relented, saying they’d be fine with voting only on how Carlton stands on debt sharing.

The debt and consolidation conversation Monday was part of an overall discussion among Carlton board members about long-range planning for the district. For the past several months, the board has entertained scenarios should Carlton decide to go it alone. The discussion was sparked by the failure to get state money in the past legislative session to help with financing for building upgrades under the consolidation plan. But the debt sharing impasse has also played a part in Carlton board members thinking about the district’s future.

The board has received some rough cost figures on various options for the district, most of which could be considered a longshot for voter approval, when considering costs and other realities.

Using figures based on a taxpayer with a home valued at $150,000, here are the scenarios discussed by the board Monday. It isn’t clear if the board will vote to narrow its options at Monday’s online meeting. All of the plans would require a referendum vote.

Consolidation

The cost to consolidate with Wrenshall, under a plan hammered out in the past few years between the districts, is estimated to be about $38 million. With debt sharing remaining a sticking point, the Carlton board will have to decide if voters would shoot down the plan if debt was shared. For the $150,000 home owner, the difference in tax would be about $41, higher with debt sharing, lower with Carlton residents paying current district debt only. The consolidation plan still needs support through state funding approval — estimated at 40 percent of costs — and the passage of referendums in the districts. The districts already agreed they wouldn’t proceed with consolidation plans if the state legislature doesn’t approve the consolidation funding.

A K-8 school only

Should Carlton end up going alone, one plan is to upgrade the South Terrace elementary school into a pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade school. Students in grades 9-12 would be released through a tuition agreement with another district. There would be no high school. The cost to upgrade South Terrace would be $23 million, with a tax impact on the $150,000 home owner of $306, or $41 more per year than the high figure for consolidation, which includes K-12 students.

The $23 million figure may seem familiar to Carlton residents. It was the estimated cost of creating a K-12 school at South Terrace in 2017. A referendum that year failed badly.

The board has discussed the release of high school students to Cloquet, although the larger school district hasn’t formally indicated if it could take those students or or not.

A new K-12 school

It would cost $34 million to create a school for all students at South Terrace, about $4 million less than the consolidation plan but requiring taxpayers in Carlton alone to foot the bill. It would mean $506 a year for the $150,000 home owner, or nearly double the cost under the consolidation plan.

Fix up, or dissolve?

There were two items discussed Monday as contrasting information only. The board earlier this year took any plan to fix up the current high school off the table, along with any plan to dissolve the district.

The high school and South Terrace require at least $17 million in deferred maintenance. It would still leave the district with “two old-bone buildings,” Superintendent Engstrom said. “It’s not a good option.”

The high school site is also desired by Carlton County as it seeks to expand and improve its next-door jail facility.

Dissolving the district is something Engstrom warned the board about discussing at all. “I wouldn’t want to be within 100 miles of a district that was openly talking about dissolution,” he said. “Who’s going to work there? Who’s going to send their kids there in that last year? Not me. Not my kids.”

He said dissolution and it effect on staff and residents would be a “tire fire disaster.”

Taxpayers would not be relieved of burdens if the district no longer existed. They would pay Carlton debt through the year 2036 — about $186 a year for the $150,000 home owner — in addition to whatever the new school district taxes were, be it Cloquet, Esko or Wrenshall, most likely. The county board would draw the new district lines to absorb a dissolved district.

Engstrom said a board should only talk about dissolution after any other viable options fail.

Carlton board member Jennifer Chmielewski said the uncertainty around consolidation has been just as damaging to a district that has been hemorrhaging students to nearby districts and suffering financial woes along with it. She said the plan for a K-12 school “will never pass” and a K-8 only school will simply delay the inevitable. She hinted Monday about bringing up a vote about dissolution.

The Monday meeting will include the audit of the district and the numbers are “not great” but “at least stable,” Engstrom said.

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Pivitol board meetings are Monday

The Carlton school board has three meetings set for Monday night, all of them online and accessible through the district website. It is finishing up its audit report and will vote on a levy later in the evening, along with discussion about the future of the district with or without consolidation with Wrenshall. The finance committee meeting begins at 6 p.m. A truth-in-taxation meeting takes place at 6:30. The regular board meeting begins at 7 p.m. It will be the final meeting for board members LaRae Lehto and Jennifer Chmielewski, who both chose to not seek re-election this fall.