Flagler School Board’s Lease of Old Courthouse Hides Sharply Higher Costs and Falling Enrollment

When the Flagler County school district administration first proposed last May to lease the old courthouse in Bunnell, it did so under the rosiest of assumptions: that the lease would allow the district to consolidate half a dozen programs under one roof, that it would create more classroom space at some of its elementary schools, and that it would save money.

By the time the School Board approved the proposal last month, and the County Commission followed last week, only one of the three propositions was true.




Programs for non-traditional students like Rise Up, Trail, Adults with Disabilities and iFlagler will move to the old courthouse. But there is no space crunch in elementary schools. To the contrary. Elementary schools are losing students. And the annual cost of leasing the building will be closer to twice as expensive as when the board first heard about it, with monthly payments way above the originally estimated $7,676.

When the board approved the lease, the rent cost alone had risen to $9,378 a month. But the cost did not include plus janitorial, groundskeeping and trash pick-up of over $8,000 a month, in the county’s estimate. That would have amounted to rent of $17,151 a month. The cost did not include utilities that the board estimates at $10,000 a month. All of which results in a monthly cost of $27,151, and a yearly cost of $325,000.

That also doesn’t include at least $650,000 in renovations the district will have to spend to rebuild the interior of the courthouse to its needs. It does not include the 4 percent rent increase that will compound every year. (The rent two years from now: $10,143.83 a month.) It does not include the $422 a month that the previous tenant was paying for trash pick-up. That alone would increase the district’s monthly costs to $17,573–plus utilities.




In its initial presentation to the School Board, the district administration projected total rent and utility costs at $212,000. In its “fiscal impact” presentation, it niftily made that cost equal to what it would “save” by “recovering” the cost of 10 portable classrooms now in use at Belle Terre Elementary and Rymfire Elementary.

Aside from consolidating the programs under one roof and saving money, that had been the argument for leasing the courthouse: to get those classrooms back, even though the district is not under an enrollment crunch. It has more significantly more space in its elementary schools than it did 10 years ago.

Enrollment figures from the first weeks show that the 17-year stall in enrollment is continuing into this year. The district is not in need of these portables because the enrollment drop has been steepest in elementary schools.

Belle Terre Elementary has capacity for 1,525 students, according to the district’s own documents. Its enrollment in the first week of school 10 years ago was 1,238. Its enrollment at the end of the first week of school this year was 1,042, a 17 percent decline in 10 years.




Rymfire has capacity for 1,715 students. It had 1,172 students in the opening weeks of school 10 years ago. This year: 932 students, a 23 percent decline, putting the school’s enrollment at just a little over half capacity.

The School Board never discussed capacity at its schools when it discussed the courthouse lease. Capacity is a sore subject, because it sharply contradicts the district’s claim that it’s been growing, or about to grow, a claim it’s been making for years. So board members never raised the question: is the courthouse really needed? They took the administration’s proposal at face value, then found a way to make costs look what they’re not.

It took a few weeks of negotiations between the district and the county administration to arrive at a variety of cost options. When Dave Freeman, the district’s chief of operations, presented those options to the School Board in late August, he broke them down into three options, even though the bottom-line numbers were the same. The options looked different only because in some, the county was responsible for all tenancy costs, in others, the district picked up some of those costs. So the School Board took the option that made it seem as if rent was not as much as it seemed: $9,378 a month. But that required taking out janitorial and groundskeeping costs, which the district will have to pay, and it did not include utilities or trash pick-up. It was simply a way to make the number look more palatable, and closer to the $7,676 first estimated in May.

The board debated the lease proposal–actually, a joint agreement with the county–two or three times in workshops, but by the time it approved the agreement at a meeting last month, it did so hurriedly, as part of its “consent” agenda–the part that includes numerous ostensibly routine items that are approved wholesale, without discussion. In its workshops, the board had shown some reservations about the building’s age. Those reservations are reflected in the lease terms: just two years, with two five-year options to renew, and an option for the district to buy the building after the end of the first two years. The county will have the right of first refusal.




Freeman never presented the actual cost of janitorial and groundskeeping services as a counterpoint to the county’s estimate, only saying: “Would we pay $91,000 [a year] for custodial in a 50,000 square foot building? Probably not.”

“So basically, the difference here is about from eight, a little over $8,000 to nine, about $1,000 more than what we were expecting,” Will Furry, who chairs the school board, said. “The other stuff we were already expecting to pay those items, the first conversations.”

Board member Colleen Conklin, who tends to understand numbers more clearly than some of her colleagues, wasn’t convinced. “I just don’t see how this is a great deal for us,” she said. “If I’m a member of the public and I’m looking at this, it makes zero sense why we would even consider doing.” She asked the administration to include all documentation for public access on the district’s website, at least to make the district’s reasoning clearer.

Freeman insisted that “we’re gaining 10 classrooms. And if we did not, if we don’t do that, we’re going to have to pay to lease lease portables.”

“When, when you presented it in that way, it made sense, right? Because financially, it worked out. But when you’re looking at this agenda item, it doesn’t look like it worked out,” Conklin said.

The assumption that portables would be necessary despite the falling enrollment in elementary schools was never questioned.




“This is going to be a great building with great success, universe,” Board member Sally Hunt said even as she acknowledged that the building was not in good shape. “If the goal is to potentially even purchase this, yeah, I think that what you guys have put together looks to be really good.” Conklin doesn’t think the building is worth more than $1. In fact, the county had “transferred” it to Bunnell in 2013 for less than that. Months later Bunnell began to fear a money pit, and five months after it had accepted it, the city gave it back.

There’d been plenty of talk about the district ceding some space in the courthouse to the Flagler County Historical Society, whose Holden House is across the street. Some space at the courthouse would have provided a natural extension of the society’s functions. But when the district last discussed the lease before the Aug. 20 vote, the society was never mentioned.

First Baptist Church originally leased the courthouse in 2015 for its parochial school, with an extension to 2025. It built a new school an moved out at the end of the last school year.

At the county’s end, County Commissioner Donald O’Brien wanted to ensure that the maintenance of the grounds also means maintaining “the traditional courthouse look.” Just as the district is prohibited from making changes to the building’s facade, O’Brien wants a prohibition on changing the grounds. “Because what would be prevented from putting a bus lane through the middle of the grass there, or a change in parking or something like that,” he said.

“If they decide to purchase it, we’ll have to add all these options that you’re speaking of,” Assistant County Administrator Salinas said, since currently any changes to the grounds would have to be approved by the county anyway.

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