People who voted "NO" on the sinking fund only have themselves to blame when the schools start to fall apart and people move to other districts where residents care about their schools. You think your home values are low now?? Just wait!

The biggest mistake was doing further harm to our community’s reputation. Like so many other problems created by this Board majority, we'll be asked to forget it, move on and move forward. But what should really be a concern is why with so many north end Board members (and past Board member DeMarco) this Board couldn’t rally their neighbors to vote for this millage.

I agree, but you should never have to ask your neighbors to support schools or police/fire. Once the reputation of your school system and public safety starts to get tarnished, people leave. When people start to leave, property values plummet. Times are tough, but they were asking for $1/day for a $250,000 house and people said no. But they have no problem buying their $5 Starbucks or smoking $9/pack cigarettes. The residents of WB who voted NO should be embarrassed.

How much more like a Democrat can peope sound? Give us more money to misappropriate. In the short time that I have lived in West Bloomfield, I have heard of school scandal after school scandal. This is not about how much more we spend on coffee than supporting our schools. This is about the voters not trusting leadership to make good fiscal decisions. Walled Lake Schools asked for 2 million dollars to support facility repair for far more buildings than the 2.5 million that WB Schools asked for to support 8 buildings. The WB School Board is asking us to keep the district out of deficit and the only way that they can do that is to find a pot of gold. This has little to do with maintenance of our buildings.
The bond did not pass on the north end of the district because most of the school community at Gretchko.,Scotch, and Roosevelt is "Schools of Choice.". When they chip in for facility maintenance, the resident community will pass the sinking fund and future bonds. The north end school board members can not sell their neighbors more baloney. The bosrd should stop trying.

It was sad to see in your article that Keego Harbor played a part in voting this down. I can't help but think that the talks of closing Roosevelt didn't have an impact. To be totally honest, I considered voting it down for that reason. But I couldn't. My husband and I will always stand by the West Bloomfield School District. We have 3 good reasons why. Our 3 adult children benefited immensely from the education they received from the West Bloomfield School District. We knew the WBSD was a huge bonus when we bought our affordable home in Keego Harbor back in 1980. We will always vote yes in support of future Keego Harbor children. Still I am very upset with any plans to close Roosevelt, the Mother of West Bloomfield School District. It is my hope that the school board considers all options before they would decide to do this. I would suggest considering moving ACS (administration) to Roosevelt. The history of Roosevelt to the WBSD is worthy of some creative thinking. Keego Harbor will back them with this kind of thinking and effort to save this very special school.

Mark, I am a republican. Supporting your schools shouldn't be a political issue. Bringing personal opinions about board members into the equation is selfish and ignorant. Karen has the attitude that we should all have. It's about the kids and our community. When the township turns to crap and your home values get cut another 33% you only have yourself to blame.

Republicans are not better leaders than Democrats so I was not trying to pay Republicans a compliment. They failed to win the White House because of the leadership team that that put before their base. The same leadership void is present on the West Bloomfield School Board. Two of the responders above gave good reasons why the bond failed and suggested solutions. I guess those will be ignored. The school board is not entitled to our tax dollars whenever the wind blows. There are three board members from Orchard Lake and one new one that was just elected. Why did the bond fail so soundly in that school community? Perhaps, the residents of the Scotch and Gretchko precincts are not influenced by former board member DeMarco because of her relentless advocacy in favor of Schools of Choice. They should shoulder some of the financial burden of maintaining our schools. The school board and/or bond committee did not do a good job of convincing voters that they need 2.5 million dollars for facility repairs when a bond was just passed in 2009 and at least 3 faciliities are tapped to be closed in the next 3 years (Ealy, Roosevelt, and the Administrative building). I would like to see a chart projecting the maintenance needs of our buildings over the next five years. Tell me a real story instead of the lame PR effort that the new Superintendent points to in this article.

"They should shoulder some of the financial burden of maintaining our schools." How would you suggest that?

Again, I'm not really into politics. I'm into WB having the best schools and public safety in the area. That provides for a safe and desirable community which helps our kids learn and keep our property values high. I have two kids in WB schools. One is in 5th grade and one in 9th. I can tell you that the schools are starting to decline. We have lost so many good teachers that went to other districts. They are replaced with first year teacher that are cheaper to hire than experienced teachers. Most teachers are leaving to go to Bloomfield or Birmingham schools. Also, supplies and textbooks are starting to get scarce in the schools. Bottom line is the schools need money to allow our kids to be competitive after high school. Other district's residents see this....I hope ours do as well.

The proposal likely failed for some straightforward reasons. First, the rate was unjustifiably high. No comparable district in metro Detroit has a sinking fund of 1.5 mills. The average is less than a half mill, with many quality districts imposing zero. (For details, see my comments on the earlier article at http://westbloomfield.patch.com/articles/schools-elections-beaty-wins-west-bloomfield-sinking-funds-loses). As Mark Scott says, Walled Lake appears to be doing just fine with a much smaller fund. Plus, the district offered residents no detailed justification, grounded in an independent analysis of long term facility maintenance needs, for the $25 million the millage was projected to raise over 10 years.

Second, substantial segments of the community have understandably concluded that the administration and board have poorly managed the district's finances in recent years, leaving taxpayers with the second highest debt retirement (over 8 mills) of any comparable district and over-relying on schools of choice to avoid hard decisions about closing facilities to align resources with the declining core WB student population. The recent decisions to reduce schools of choice accessions and close Ealy are necessary, but insufficient, steps in the right direction.

Third, many community-minded WB homeowners are surely feeling a bit tapped after approving three other new millages in the past year, totaling 3.4 mills (public safety 2.85, parks 0.35, DIA 0.2).

If they board can get its act together, provide the detailed maintenance analysis, and take additional steps toward restoring the district's fiscal position and reputation, I suspect a future proposal between one-half and one mill would have a good chance of approval.

It has been suggested many times that the "Schools of Choice" families contribute an annual $600.00 building maintenance fee. There are about 1700 families.
Many great teachers left the district because of the school board's unwillingness to negotiate in good faith coupled with the unbelievable severance incentives that it gave to very talented administrators for no good reason. The school board has maintained that the administrative and teacher talent is as good as the talent that left. Are you correct or are they?
Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham left us behind because they did not rely on "Schools of Choice" and wisely followed the fund equity recommendations of it's auditors. Both were able to weather a cyclical economy and an anti-public education legislature.

This district has become completely out of touch with reality and the seriousness of the current situation. Tonight, for all interested tax payers, there will be an auction held at the Orchard Lake country club, with the expected $30,000 being raised to build a track at Gretckho Elem. Seriously, how can this happen in good conscience. We have no funds for maintenance, no tracks at the middle schools, all the other districts do, and we are building a track for 5 and 6 year olds ?

I am not totally disagreeing with you about how we got into this situation. I wasn't totally for School of Choice but that is beside the point. But here we are, in 2012, and our schools are going down hill. Quit bitching about the past and start looking to the future of your community.

I am correct about the quality of teachers. As a parent that is very active in my child's schools, I discuss this at great lengths with other parents. The new teachers are very talented "new teachers". But they can't compare to the experienced teachers we have lost, especially at the elementary school level, where kids are learning their basic skills. Most of these teachers are getting their first classroom experience at the expense of our children. They are still learning how to teach.

That is the the first I have heard of a $600 fee for SoC families. Would this be mandatory or volunteer? If it was mandatory it would raise $1m and that is a start. If it is volunteer it won't raise anything of significance.

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ConcernedWBTaxpayer said "Third, many community-minded WB homeowners are surely feeling a bit tapped after approving three other new millages in the past year, totaling 3.4 mills (public safety 2.85, parks 0.35, DIA 0.2)."

Those millages cost $875/year on a $250,000 house. I am not saying that is insignificant, but it is $2.40 a day to improve your community. Unfortunately these are needed because of lower property taxes being brought into the township due to drastically reduced house values and foreclosures. Therefor, the choice is to cut these services or ask the community to pay extra for them. We live in an upscale community and most of us are proud of that distinction. If we don't support our parks, library, schools, and public safety then we will turn into a city such as _______ (fill in any city you can think of that was once desirable that you would now never live in. I am not saying we should blindly pass any millage thrown our way, but let's do what's best for our kids and our community.

Thanks for being critical of the teacher talent recently hired in the district. That kind of talk will go a long way in reassuring people out there to choose WB Schools for their elementary school aged children. Approving a sinking fund millage can not guarantee a good education and you seem to believe that that is already lost in West Bloomfield. What is the board going to do, replace the underperforming elementary school teachers once the sinking fund millage passes? The school board can already do that.
The Sylvan Lake SOC families can start a capital campaign because they have always been strong advocates and supporters of West Bloomfield Schools. They certainly save a ton of money by not having to put their kids in private school.

As for property values, there's no question that the declining reputation of West Bloomfield schools doesn't help. It's not an accident that real estate listings for homes in West Bloomfield Twp with Birmingham or Bloomfield Hiils schools always highlight that fact.

If you compare 2011 millage rates across the various school districts within WB Twp, it appears that homeowners in the WB district are getting somewhat shortchanged. They pay almost exactly the same rate as those in the Birmingham district (41.35 vs 41.66 mills) and slightly more than BH (41.35 vs 39.71), but get lower performing schools. And they pay substantially more than those in the Walled Lake district (41.35 vs 35.46) for equivalent schools. To be fair, those within the Waterford or Pontiac boundaries also pay substantially less, but obviously get much reduced education quality in return.

Although better financial management by the West Bloomfield school board could help the district's performance by focusing existing resources in the areas that truly impact student performance--especially the hiring and retaining of outstanding teachers and principals--it's not likely that a mill or so worth of minor facility improvements from sinking fund dollars would do much to affect the district's reputation. That would require improvements in both objective indicators like test scores and anecdotal, subjective indicators like parent satisfaction. Some contributing factors are within the district's ability in influence through teacher quality, curriculum, and schools of choice admissions, but others, such as demographics and the emphasis individual families place on education, are not likely to be affected by better administration or more funding.

I'm sure we can argue this forever. But this is good dialogue and for once on a message board it didn't get personal with nasty comments and name calling. Let's just agree to disagree and all work together for a great West Bloomfield Township!!

While we can agree that its great for parents to do private fundraising for their kids future and we are grateful for that. Hopefully more parents will actually start to look more closely at the way the board and district spend their limited resources and get actively involved where the real money for our kids is being misspent. It reminds many of the movie, on the Titanic, the rich people continued to sip their champagne and the music played on as the ship went down, and they acted as if nothing was wrong.

West Bloomfield School's sinking fund millage should pass in May 2013 if the Superintendent and school board members adequately address all of the concerns raised by voters in the comment section of this article.

Right now, WB school district residents are paying close to top dollar for schools that, while still very good, have an unquestionably declining reputation. And though overall WB taxes aren't yet at the level of, say, Birmingham or Grosse Pointe, few would argue that our services and reputation are as strong, either. As another example, Orchard Lake Village has slightly lower taxes than WB, but they're in the process of repaving most of their residential streets via normal tax collections. In WB, the only way to get that done is to voluntarily tax your neighborhood thousands of dollars per house via Special Assessment District.

In addition, if taxes rise too much, WB risks a competitiveness problem that could further undermine property values. Within WB Twp, houses in the WB school district are already disadvantaged vis-a-vis those in the Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, and Walled Lake districts, where they pay the same or lower taxes for equal or better performing schools.

Relative to other communities with which WB competes for new residents, we're generally paying more, and it's not obvious that taxpayers are getting very much in return.

As a quick case study, let's compare WB to four communities where a prospective metro Detroit homebuyer can find similar quality of life, housing values, and schools. In 2011, a $300,000 WB house in WB schools ($150,000 taxable value--about the median) would pay $6203 in WB property taxes, as compared to $4539 in Commerce, $5844 in Novi ($4856 if in Northville schools), $4865 in Rochester Hills, and $5552 in Troy. On average, that's over $1000/year (16%) higher, without a WB sinking fund in place.

And if our potential homebuyer's budget is a bit higher, she can choose to upgrade to Bloomfield Township, Birmingham, or Northville, where taxes are about the same as WB (10% higher in Birmingham) and housing, schools, and services are generally superior.

If you repeat this calculation for the all the (3 dozen+) municipality-school district combinations with which we realistically compete, you'll find WB houses with WB schools near the top of the tax burden rankings, with only a small handful of places--mostly for explainable quality reasons--appreciably higher.

If WB continues to grow the cost disparity with competitor communities by increasing the tax burden without commensurate improvements in schools and services, we will further incentivize homebuyers to choose those communities instead. That risks starting the downward spiral experienced by a number of the inner ring suburbs: fewer (and less affluent) residents, lower property values, reduced tax base, and increasingly higher rates to make up the difference. Over a decade or two, this sequence can have a major impact on quality of life and home prices in the community.

I don't think we're there yet, and WB still has a lot to offer current and prospective residents (including lakes, libraries, parks, cultural centers, a central location, and quality--though slightly aging--housing stock), but we have every right to demand our elected officials take the necessary steps to keep us from moving further in that direction. If they do, they'll likely get the community support they need.

I don't know who "concerned WB taxpayer" is but you may want to come to the school board meeting on Monday and raise these concerns. There was a pretty strong hint at the end of today's PCN meeting that the issue of putting another version of the sinking fund millage before the voters will be discussed. Because the Board practice is typically to decide these issues before meetings and just goes through the motions of public discussion at the public meetings, please share the millage comparisons with board members ASAP. Here's a link to their contact information: http://www.westbloomfield.k12.mi.us/wbsd/District/Board-of-Education/Board-Members-140.html

All: Thanks for the comments. Terrific thread.