REGIONAL—- Iron Range school superintendents want to tap a newly-created Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board fund, which was designed to aid districts that are consolidating, and divert hundreds of millions of dollars to capital improvements.

Their funding plan calls for $240 million in capital improvements, with the St. Louis County School District slated to get $20 million and the Ely School District expected to receive $10 million.

St. Louis County School District Superintendent Steve Sallee acknowledged that discussions among the superintendents have taken place, but stressed that the St. Louis County District still plans to use its money to buy down its bond debt.

“My understanding is that the $20 million was to pay down the bond,” Sallee wrote in an email to the Timberjay. “It was not for capital projects.”

Ely Superintendent Alexandra E. Leitgeb said her district has a variety of needs that could be addressed with more capital improvement funds.

“Our buildings and science labs are close to 100 years old,” she wote in an email to the Timberjay. “We need to create a learning environment for the children that is safe, warm, dry and furthers their ability to learn.”

Leitgeb added that the district plans to replace 30-year-old roofs and update its science rooms. Other projects include expanding the early childhood area to offer more time in class for 0-5 year olds.

“Our crumbling plaster in classrooms is not conducive to learning,” she wrote. “Our windows do not even have screens on them and this creates a safety risk for students.”

IRRRB Commissioner Mark Phillips opposes the proposal and said it would require a change in the legislation that created the Iron Range School Consolidation and Cooperatively Operated School Account.

“I don’t believe they have the legislative support they need to change the law,” said Phillips.

In an email response, Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, who developed the proposal for the fund, said there is no change in the current law in the IRRRB school act being proposed this year. The senator previously said the money should not go to capital building projects for individual districts and emphasized that the fund should focus on curriculum.

Phillips makes the same argument, saying the fund is intended to help schools benefit through collaboration, whether it be by consolidating into a single district or by pooling resources to enhance their curriculum.

Divvying the money up for schools to use for individual capital projects weakens the incentive for collaboration, he said, adding that schools have other resources to address their building needs.

Phillips added that the new fund is still in its early stages. “We haven’t even got our first year of total funding,” he said. “The second part is scheduled to come in August.”

As a result, the IRRRB has yet to develop guidelines on determining how to handle funding requests from districts. But Phillips said the intent of the legislation creating the fund was clear— that multiple-school collaborations were the focus.

The proposal was driven by discussions at the time to merge the Virginia, Mountain Iron-Buhl and Eveleth-Gilbert school districts. But those talks broke down in the face of overwhelming public opposition.

Although there is no composite list of all the projects that schools want to fund, details on the amount each school would receive have emerged.

According to the breakdown, Virginia, Eveleth-Gilbert and Mountain Iron-Buhl would receive $25 million each. Grand Rapids and St. Louis County get $20 million apiece while Chisholm and Education Innovation Partners each get $15 million. Ely, Mesabi East and Lake Superior each receive $10 million while the remaining $65 million would be divided among other Range schools.

The school fund currently sits at $2.458 million but would swell to $7.213 million by Aug. 24, according to IRRRB officials.

The superintendents’ plan, however, would spend down the entire fund over a 20-year period.

That worries Phillips, who said the recent downturn in the mining industry should serve as a warning that borrowing against the future is risky. “We don’t know how strong our mining economy will be in the next year, let alone the next decade,” he cautioned.