Question 2: CCSD admits capital projects "will be added, deleted or modified as necessary"
Earlier this week, I detailed some of the reasons why the Clark County School District's campaign to raise property taxes is full of bait-and-switches.
In a response to NPRI, Joyce Haldeman, CCSD's chief lobbyist for the Capital Improvement Plan, actually outlined another way officials are playing the bait-and-switch game.
Here's some of what Haldeman wrote in response to NPRI's research.
By necessity, the plan must be fluid to respond to changes in conditions that occur to the major systems and conditions in our schools. ...And the adding, deleting and modifying has already begun. There are differences between the May project list, the September project list and the list Haldeman sent around to media folks earlier this week.
Projects will be added, deleted or modified as necessary to meet enrollment and changing program needs within the District in "revisions" to the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). (Emphasis added.)
Haldeman even wrote that "three schools (Beckley, McWilliams, and Culley elementary schools) were removed from the 2012 list. They were temporarily included on a preliminary draft list of projects due to a clerical error but are not included on the final list because the work at those schools is completed."
It'd be a full-time job to try and follow what's on the list, what's off the list and what's being "modified."
What that means for parents, students and taxpayers is that there is no guarantee that a project currently on the list will happen if the tax increase passes. There's also no guarentee a certain project won't be "deleted" before Election Day.
CCSD officials are, once again, waving the bait. With this information, I hope you can also see the "switch" around the corner.
