Groton — The proposed school construction program is too expensive and new buildings don't translate into better education, members of the political action committee Groton Advocates for Tax Efficiency said Monday.

Committee co-founders Scott Aument and Rosanne Kotowski, member Fred Kent and resident Bill Smith spoke against the proposed school construction referendum during a meeting with The Day editorial board.

The plan would build one middle school adjacent to Robert E. Fitch High School, renovate and convert the two existing middle schools into elementary schools and close three of Groton's oldest buildings – Claude Chester, S.B. Butler and Pleasant Valley elementary schools.

The referendum will ask voters to approve the full $184 million cost of the plan, with Groton residents covering about $84 million of that total.  Based on a median home value of $223,800, which is assessed at a lesser amount of $156,000, the school project would cost the average homeowner $194 annually. GATE members said the bond payments will last 25 years.

That's an average tax increase of 5.7 percent for him, Smith said. His taxes already went up in each of the last two years, he said.

"So I'm saying to myself, 'OK, how much do I get a year in' ... whatever. My wife's on Social Security. What's her increase? One or 2 percent? How much money do I have left over at the end of the day, versus where it's going elsewhere?" he said.

A "shiny new building" does not translate into better education, Smith said. The town will take on additional debt while "there is empirical study upon empirical study which says new school facilities do nothing to improve the educational quality for the students," he said.

But supporters of the plan argued the opposite.

Delay will only cost taxpayers more because interest rates will rise, the schools will get older, state reimbursement will fall and construction costs will escalate, members of the Groton 2020 Schools political action committee, said.

"This isn't about shiny new buildings. It's about modern tehnology in the buildings. It's about adequate spaces for special education and all the advances that we've made in education in the last 60 years," said Jane Dauphinais, member of the School Facilities Initiative Task Force.

Groton will have to spend money on the schools regardless, so there's no argument to be made on taxes, she said. The same argument being made now has been made for years to delay investment in the schools, she said.

"They're just asking voters to kick the can another time," she said. "They are one of the reasons we're so outdated. These schools have been maintained on a custodial level superbly, but they have not had investments to keep them up to educational standards."

Fixing the schools will cost $64 million, while for another $20 million, the town can get new facilities with a substantial portion paid by the state, Groton 2020 Schools pointed out.

Members of GATE questioned the $64 million estimate. Aument said he believes it's a gamble to assume the state will grant Groton the waivers and financial support it needs to proceed. 

"I don't like to gamble," he said. "I think the state has not been forthright with us and other area towns. You look at New London. Have they gotten all their money back from their school projects? I don't know."

The fiscal status of the state and town are also relevant, Aument said.

"We're going to drive people more and more out," he said. "We're going to drive businesses more and more out, and that's just going to be an exponential effect in the wrong direction."

Groton could take other steps to resolve issues like racial imbalance, Kotowski said. She suggested the district consider "sister schools," which would merge students from two schools, like S.B. Butler and Catherine Kolnaski Magnet School, and make one school a kindergarten to grade 2 school and the other a grade 3 to 5 school.

She added that Groton shouldn't need one middle school to create equal opportunity. 

"The two existing middle schools should be equal," she said. "Students should receive the identical education in Groton middle schools whether at Cutler or West Side (middle school). If, in fact, the two middle schools are not equal, then the administrators allowing that to happen need to be replaced."

If the town wants to improve facilities, it could do so with smaller projects, she said.

Kent, a Mystic resident and member of the committee, pointed out that enrollment in Groton schools has fallen 1,232 students, or 21.5 percent since 2002, and more students are attending other public and non-public schools. He questioned why the district would build when enrollment trends are down.

d.straszheim@theday.com