"This section of land was annexed by Middletown.  Middletown is developing it, Middletown and Middletowns schools should reap the benefit."

Edited

"Is it reasonable to spend $156,647 to secure potential future revenues in the tens of millions?" Ms. Andrew

Marcia Andrew: Middletown wants fair solution to land dispute

Sunday, November 02, 2008

It is misleading for the Franklin City School District to continually paint itself as the victim in the dispute over Middletown City School District's request to redraw the school district boundaries to include the land around the Atrium Medical Center. Ask yourself:

• When one city expands into vacant land of another city, spurring economic development subsidized by the taxpayers of the first city, who should reap the benefits of the expanded tax base? Middletown taxpayers contributed millions of dollars to allow the building of the new hospital, and the city's economic development efforts — also funded by Middletown taxpayers — have focused on this area by the interstate. Before the land was annexed to the city of Middletown, it was an empty field full of buried tires. Is Franklin entitled to a windfall from Middletown's investment?

• Is it reasonable to spend $156,647 to secure potential future revenues in the tens of millions? The amount spent, spread over three years, although large, is still a tiny fraction of our $70 million annual budget. Student learning was not impacted. Plus, the old adage is true — you have to spend money to make money.

As new businesses locate near the hospital, and existing businesses migrate there from downtown, the tax value of the land will increase dramatically. Over the next several decades, tens of millions of dollars of new tax revenue is at stake. From this perspective, it would be irresponsible for Middletown not to pursue the land transfer.

• Did the Middletown school board follow a reasonable process in making its decisions? From the initial decision in 2005 to file the petition for the land transfer, through the most recent decision to appeal the denial of the transfer to the Court of Appeals, a total of 10 different school board members have been briefed on the matter. Board members asked hard questions of the superintendent, treasurer and legal counsel.

At every stage, each of the then-current board members agreed that it was in the best interests of the Middletown School District and Middletown taxpayers to attempt to redraw the school district boundaries to match the city boundaries. The right to appeal is a basic part of the judicial system, providing a means to correct the errors of lower courts. Is Middletown wrong for refusing to concede the game before the fourth quarter has been played?

• Why does the law require an all-or-nothing outcome? The way the law is written, one district or the other will receive 100 percent of the tax revenues from the disputed area. From the beginning, Middletown has preferred a compromise in which Franklin would keep all of the tax revenue from the existing taxable value of the land, and the new tax revenue generated by the expected increase in land values would be shared fairly between the two districts.

Middletown has repeatedly tried to reach a win-win solution, but Franklin apparently prefers to gamble on grabbing all of the tax windfall for itself.

Marcia Andrew is a member of the Middletown Board of Education.