The TRUTH as I See It: Building Cost
YOU ARE SAVING HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS...

I found it interesting recently when the Jordan School District was accused of the high building cost.

I am okay when you criticize our schools when the reason is justified but this accusation could not be farther from the truth.

Let me share with you, the truth as I see it. I will use examples from our neighboring district only to demonstrate our frugal approach to controlling building costs. I do not want to be critical of their approach because they are responding to their community that is okay with increased spending.

Renovate vs Rebuild

The Jordan School Board recently had to make some tough choices about Bingham High School. Bingham was built at its current location in the late 1970s. After extensive evaluation, the Board approved a 30 million dollar renovation using our summer capital funds. This renovation would be done during the summer, over around 5 years. The rising cost will put the project around 35 to 40 million dollars and the project will take an extra year or two.

Nearby districts that have schools built during the same time period, Brighton, Hillcrest, Skyline, and Cyprus have decided to tear down their schools and rebuilt them. The new schools have all the bells and whistles that Jordan District could never afford. Indoor turf fields, performing arts centers, and some have new swimming pools. These schools are being built somewhere around the cost of 150 million dollars. The be honest, the number of students in some of these schools, does not justify the cost of rebuilding an under-enrolled school.

The shell of Bingham is perfectly fine and the renovation will give us an additional 20 to 30 years of life.
SAVINGS TO THE JORDAN DISTRICT TAX PAYERS… At least 100 million dollars.

Overbuilding and Operating Schools:

This year, the Jordan School District will pass Granite School District in size. Over the last 10 years, Granite has lost a feeder system of schools (about 7,000 students) and Jordan has grown by the same number. One member of our community who was somewhat a critic before the truth in taxation hearing did their homework after the hearing and shared with me… Granite School District has 97 current operating schools, while Jordan has 67 current operation schools.
TWO School Districts, Same size but thirty school difference.
It cost of operating a school is about a million dollars per year.

SAVINGS TO THE JORDAN DISTRICT TAXPAYERS… At least 30 million dollars annually in operating costs.

It should be noted that if those 30 schools were closed, Granite School District could SAVE Hundreds of millions of dollars in the sale of underpopulated schools.

Jordan School Board is willing to make hard decisions, like changing boundaries, closing schools, and carefully building schools in the right locations.


Portable Schools:

Did YOU know that the Jordan School District has portable schools?
That is right, out of design the Jordan School Board has approved 250 portables which is the size of 8 elementary schools to shift with the population. Many people think we use portables because we do not think ahead and build schools fast enough or large enough. The FACT is, Classroom portables allow us to expand and decrease the size of schools. As population changes, we can move portables from school to school to answer the rising or decreasing population of a school.

Portables allow the district not to overbuild SAVING MILLIONS of taxpayers' money in not overbuilding a community.

School Boards in decades to come will be grateful that the Jordan School Board made Portables as a strategic part of their plan. The need to close schools in the areas that we are currently building, will likely never be needed.
SAVINGS TO THE JORDAN TAXPAYER? Millions and Millions of dollars.

We should talk about our flex school here but I will save it for another post.


Architectural Design Cost

Have you ever wondered why most Jordan School District Schools look alike?
We basically have a couple school designs we use over and over again. For example, our high schools since Copper Hills have all been the same design. Sometimes it is referred to as the Copper Hills Model. Copper Hills, Riverton, Herriman, and now Mountain Ridge are all the same designs. Slight modifications are made to each school, but basically, it is the same school. We have two Middle School Designs and two Elementary models.

Using the same design SAVES the JORDAN TAXPAYERS 2 or 3 million dollars in architectural design cost per new school.
That adds up since we on average build at least one new school a year.

Building Cost:

Jordan LEADS the way in Building costs.
Oak Leaf Elementary School is costing taxpayers about 19 million when most school districts are spending 25+ million for a new elementary school.
Mountain Ridge High School, cost about the same overall cost to build as Herriman High School (about 80 million) even though the two schools were built 10 years apart. The school is the same size.

That is incredible. Think about that. Same cost, a decade later?
How did we do it?

The Jordan School Board created groups of Patrons, Teachers, Administrators, and Students to look at the designs of our buildings. They toured other districts and looked at our designs. They worked with our architectural companies and found ways to cut out building costs by at least 17%. This was in preparation for our 245 million dollar BOND.
When it came to building our new BONDED schools, we were under budget and on time.
Did you know that fiscally wise spending allowed us to not only build 6 schools but the majority of a 7th school was built from the savings of the bond money?
SAVINGS TO THE JORDAN TAXPAYER… Mountain Ridge High School at least 50 Million.

Some people think Mountain Ridge is a Tai Mahal (over the top) school. In reality, what looks like an upgrade, was actually a cost saver.

Have you ever noticed the school does not sit square with the street? The sideways build was actually so we could build on the natural contour of the property SAVING TAXPAYERS a couple million in excavation cost.
The arena-style gym with entrances on the higher and lower levels, well it is actually a retaining wall. Again saving the District millions.
We used tile, not brick, and the commons area was just a shift in design.

PLEASE take a moment and study the cost savings designs that you see at Mountain Ridge and other schools in our district. Compare the attached charts and look for yourself the square foot cost of Mountain Ridge vs other traditional public schools.
Please take a look at what we are paying for Charter Schools because you know they are public schools and you are paying for those too.

I could go on and on, this is not everything.

The TRUTH is the Jordan School District, is one of the fastest growing school districts, but we have one of the lowest debt-to-student ratios.

How does that even happen?

I get it, I was once a critic of the district and was so misinformed.

The TRUTH is, that we are blessed with an incredible district. Our Business Administrator is the best in Utah. There is no better facility administration, and we are led by an amazing superintendent.

OUR SAVINGS, had not affected OUR quality.
We have top-notch quality at the lowest possible cost.

The TRUTH is “JORDAN does MORE with LESS”