City council, MUSD meet to discuss shared facility use, partnerships

In a rare joint public meeting, the Maricopa Unified School District Governing Board and Maricopa City Council met last night to discuss possible partnerships that could benefit both organizations in the future.

“It is nice to work together and set realistic goals that benefit the community as a whole,” said Geoff Goddard, governing board president.

At the forefront of these conversations were two intergovernmental agreements: one would determine how the city pays for usage of school facilities; and the second would open school facilities to third parties.

For the past year and a half, the school district and the city have been locked into an IGA that allows the city to use the district’s facilities free of charge. In exchange, the city does not charge permitting fees for new construction to MUSD.

However, concerns about how this relationship is structured have surfaced as the rate at which the district is building is coming to a halt.

“We have essentially two projects left and more than likely, there will be no new construction for at least 10 years,” said Jeff Kleck, MUSD superintendent.

Concerns raised by the district no longer needing its fees waived pose one challenge to the current agreement; another hurdle council and MUSD addressed was budget constraints. The district builds new facilities through bond funding, which can only be used for construction costs. Yet, the money organizations pay to use the facilities goes into MUSD’s general fund, which is used to pay salaries.

In essence under the current agreement, dollars that would be put into the general fund are being rerouted to construction funding. “We are having one fund benefit another,” said Aaron Rausch, the district’s business manager.

To address the issue, district and city staffs are looking at a new agreement in which the city would share the construction fees and, in turn, the city would pay room rental rates.

Currently district staff is discussing those rates. Goddard said he hopes within the next few meetings to have rates finalized. “We need to find fair rates to charge the city and community members who want to use our facilities,” Goddard said.

Another change to the new IGA would eliminate the two-year waiting period before the city can use certain newly constructed facilities. “We don’t want to overuse the school facilities, but we would like to have them available as soon as possible,” said Mayor Anthony Smith.

MUSD originally  initiated the two-year waiting period due to warranty concerns, but Rausch said removing the stipulation may not be an issue.” These builders typically give the same one-year warranty despite the usage,” he said.

While the first IGA would focus on space needed for city-sponsored events, a second IGA would open MUSD sports fields to third parties.

The way the IGA has been structured has the city paying for the field maintenance and, in turn, the district would allow non-profit youth organizations to use the fields at Maricopa Wells and Desert Wind Middle Schools for little to no cost. Through the agreement, MUSD would maintain first right of use to the field and be in charge of scheduling usage.

However, city council members had some concerns the agreement wouldn’t do enough. “Two schools may have made a difference two or three years ago, but today that amount of space would not be sufficient to meet the demands of the youth,” said Councilwoman Marquisha Griffin.

Councilman Carl Diedrich echoed those concerns, talking about his youth and how school facilities in the cities he grew up in were always open for the public to use. “A 10-year-old kid is happy to just be on a field of grass playing, no matter what time of day it is,” Diedrich said.

Goddard countered by saying that Maricopans live in a different day and age, and the harsh reality is if these facilities are left open, it exposes the district to liability issues and possible vandalism and destruction. Kleck echoed the concerns of both men, saying he would love to drive by the high school and see community residents running on the track, but that it was not realistic.

Paul Jepson, assistant to the city manager, told the group this was a starting point and in the future it could be possible to add future facilities to the agreement.

Other topics discussed at the joint session including parking city buses at the school bus barn, a presentation relating to a new library card designed for MUSD teachers and updates on other joint projects the two entities were working on.

Photo by Michael K. Rich