Sidebar: Found Money
A friend recently dropped into Tacoma as he toured the country. Over dinner we discovered that he had never seen a web page. In fact he had never used a computer. He ran a business for ten years the old fashioned way with ledgers and notebooks.
With a little help from Laura he was shown the world wide web, email, and Google. Just to see what would happen, he typed his name into Google. The first result was a list of people that could not be located that were owed money by their state and by the IRS. He’s hooked. He’s getting a computer once he gets home. The found money may even buy it for him.
In ten years on the Internet I don’t think I’ve ever found money.
6 comments
F fred davie February 26, 2013
That TNT link doesn’t take you to listing of the 200 smaller projects. It just redirects folks to the same listing provided in the story above.
It remains to be seen if the $500M is going to “buy a lot of school.” The School Board is free to trim or modify the project listings as it sees fit and most of the proposed work hasn’t even been put out for bid. In a few years maybe we will be able to say we got a lot for our money. Too premature to say right now.
J JJ February 26, 2013
You could buy 5 modern thermonuclear weapons for that price.
J Jesse February 26, 2013
It does buy a lot of schools!
S stu February 27, 2013
Would be smart to see some economies of scale applied and build as many as possible of the new schools the same. Standardized design, construction and maintenance will keep costs down.
J jsisbest March 1, 2013
@stu. You would think that standardized design/construction would keep the cost down, but for buildings as large as schools and with needing to hire different contractors for each school, it’s rarely the case. There have been school districts who have tried building multiple elementary schools in a “standard” construction method. But in each school, each contractor offers cost-saving opportunities in altering the construction that are different based on material availability/cost, phasing/scheduling issues, prior experience, etc.
Another reason that “standard” designs are rarely put in place is that school designs are uniquely tailored to each school and community. The design includes the students, teachers, principal, parents, and community in the process. Some school curricula require learning spaces shared by a cluster of classrooms, others do not. Some schools are used after hours for community meetings and gym uses, others are not.
Bottom line, each school, site, and community are unique and contemporary school design takes these influences into consideration. You’re absolutely correct that standard systems should be used for ease/cost maintenance reasons. Generally that relates to the mechanical, plumbing, fire suppression, communication and electrical systems. School districts as large as Tacoma have standards in place for these systems that design teams are encouraged or required to use. But such standards are often living documents that change with advances in technology and each project’s lessons learned.
G Greg S. March 24, 2013
So, how are we going to keep them accountable with the spending? Do we taxpayers get to see where this $500 million is going exactly, as it’s “going”? Or are they going to get just half of this done and say they need another 500 million?