Opinion ID: 501750
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Proration Factor

Text: 31 Ritenour objects to the district court's use of the proration factor. Applying the proration factor, the district court allowed Ritenour reimbursement for only twenty-five percent of the capital costs for Buder. The district court observed that the State is only responsible for capital improvements necessary to the 12(c) plan. The district court viewed necessary expenses as including only the additional capital expense incurred by Ritenour due to the admission of additional transfer students    (i.e., new elementary transferees for 1986-87). The court estimated that about twenty-five of the students attending Buder would be transfer students. 32 The court recognized that all of the transfer students in the district contributed to the need for additional space. It presumed, however, that the students who had transferred prior to the 1986-87 school year were adequately accommodated, and thus only the additional transfer students and the growing number of resident students created the need for the reopening of Buder. 33 Ritenour argues that it should be reimbursed for fifty-five percent of its capital expenditure. The fifty-five percent payment was deemed necessary because Buder would create five hundred new seats and 273 transfer students were expected to attend the elementary schools in the Ritenour district. Thus, 227, or forty-five percent of the new seats would essentially be to accommodate the growing number of resident students. 34 We find Ritenour's reasoning persuasive. First, as Ritenour observes, the proration factor used by the BRC has never been applied in any past funding request. 5 We see no good reason to adopt it now. In addition, as the Ritenour formula recognizes, the number of transfer students already in the district has a continuing effect on the space available in existing school buildings. It is the lack of space in existing buildings, due in part to the transfer students already there, which necessitates the creation of more space. As Ritenour correctly points out, any other method of computation would lead to arbitrary results. 35 Under Ritenour's approach, a district is not compensated for one-time extraordinary costs unless it must create more classroom space to accommodate transfer students. Thus, if a school has excess space, the district would not be reimbursed for allowing transfer students to use that space. When new space is required, however, those transfer students already in the district must be taken into account, since their presence would for the first time affect the district's building plans. 36 The State should therefore reimburse the district to the extent existing and newly transferred students cause the need for new space. We thus hold that the State should reimburse Ritenour for fifty-five percent of the capital costs, or $267,300 ($486,000 X .55) for the reopening of Buder.