To the Editor:

A major objective of the PPS referendum is to eliminate the overcrowding in all schools. The following ideas will help to solve that problem and simultaneously reduce the cost of the referendum bond.

To achieve these savings, PPS and the BOE could:

1. Add a second floor in each of the K-5 schools.
2. Convert all K-5 schools to become a K-6 School.
3. Keep in place the Valley Road School complex with the administration and the busses until the Westminster CC status is finalized. If as is hoped the lawsuit will chase away the current buyers, PPS could buy from WCC five acres of land overlooking the Middle School and then sell the VRS complex for an estimated $20-25M.
4. Remove the plan to build a new 5/6 school from the referendum. This removal will reduce the size of the bond by $40M, and will save another $2-4M of future annual operating expenses for new staff, a/c, heating, etc.
5. Remove the plan to purchase the Thanet property. Not only will it reduce the cost of the referendum by $12.6M, it also will restore the loss (PPS is a nonprofit org.) of the $230,000 in taxes the current owners pay the town of Princeton. More so, it will eliminate the need for PPS to become a landlord.
6. Since the High School population will not grow in the next three years, remove the $16.2M expansion cost from the referendum and restudy the future demographics of the H.S. to determine future needs.
7. Vote NOW to issue a $27M bond to immediately start all needed physical plant repairs, renovations, safety features, HVAC work, etc. The latter should be coordinated with 1 above.
8. Commence a study to determine the costs of 1 and 2 above. Then, review the need and cost of any project listed in the referendum excluding 4, 5, 6, and 7 above. The current total cost estimate of these projects is: $129.6M minus ($40M+$12.6M+$16.2M+$27M) = $33.8M.

PPS will get the space needed, but the winners will be the Princeton tax payers whose previous estimated referendum tax impact will be reduced by about 50 percent.

The cost details could be worked out in a few months by PPS, BOE, and members of the Princeton community.

It is thus suggested that to explore all new ideas, new costs and newly revised plans, the second referendum should be postponed to April 2019.

Ralph Perry

Random Road (Presented to the Princeton

Public School Board of Education Sept. 25, 2018)