Paying Now or Paying Later

SFPS conservation coordinator runs constant campaign for sustainable choices—before it's too late

Every two weeks, Lisa Randall sits down in front of the Santa Fe Public Schools Board of Education for three minutes open to public comment. As the district’s energy and water conservation coordinator, she reminds its members to keep sustainability in mind as they make their choices.

"If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. So how do we divvy up this pie that's always too small?" Randall asked at the Dec. 1 SFPS finance subcommittee meeting. "Certainly, the time to deal with climate change was 30 years ago. But the second best time is now."

Faced with declining revenue and increased overhead, the district's financial outlook is tough, and the next year is expected to see a deficit. The next funding request for the public schools, the education technology note devoted to digital learning, goes before voters this coming February. A general obligation bond for capital projects is set to follow it in February 2017.

Still, members of the board of education say they remain committed to making progress toward carbon neutrality and sustainable schools as an educational tool for children, as well as a point of leadership for other districts in the Southwest.

"The board is completely behind the sustainability efforts of the district, and even in tough budget times, this remains a priority, and it has to remain a priority. This is not something we can step back on," says school board member Steve Carrillo, who also sits on the district's finance subcommittee. "I personally will not let this slip off the radar, and I believe the other board members feel the same."

While the demands of school programs may shape some of the choices that take priority when the time comes to spend that new bond issue, they'll do so with an eye on sustainability, Carrillo says, and he points out that all recently completed properties have included some solar panels (though some, like Capital High's, produce less than 15 percent of a school's energy). A new set of tennis courts at Santa Fe High School will likely be at the top of the list, but they'll look to make a sustainable choice with that construction, Carrillo says, as they did with the school's turf field, which was designed to reduce water consumption. Even though no buildings have reached the goal, he says new facilities should be carbon neutral.

It's tough to sell people on spending money on more efficient light bulbs when a new ball field is a much more visible win for students, Randall says, but she's got the long-range view in mind.

"I firmly believe that if we don't make choices through the lens of sustainability, that some of those other choices aren't really going to matter in 10, 15, 20 years, because we're not going to have viable water systems, viable food systems, viable energy systems. We're going to have economic insecurity, a non-resilient community, global issues that are almost insurmountable if we don't start really handling these issues now with intention," Randall tells SFR. Besides, taking these steps now will likely be cheaper and more effective than measures taken a few years from now.

"Now's the time to do it, when we have the time to be strategic and intentional," she says. "We're not yet in fierce crisis. I think we're in crisis, and I think most people don't want to hear that or acknowledge that. But we're not fleeing our homes, right? Like they are in the Marshall Islands."

The Marshall Islands, which have a peak elevation in single digits, are slowly being swallowed by rising sea levels, as The New York Times and Washington Post recently reported.

The island's sea walls are crumbling, its drinking water wells flooding, its streets filling with sewage, even its cemeteries washing away into the ocean, one row of graves at a time.

Climate change isn't yet so visible here—though the forecast includes decreasing snowpack in the city watershed just east of town—but it's not far off.

The cost of building or remodeling wisely now to hold that future off may be just 10 percent of the cost of a building over its lifetime, Randall says, and will save money to pay back those costs over time. And money saved on an electric bill goes back to the operational budget, and the bulk of that operational budget is spent on salaries.

"Any amount of money that we don't spend on utilities we can divert back to the classroom, directly to the people who work with our kids, which is where it belongs. So to me, that's an easy incentive," Randall says.

Santa Fe Public Schools is a leader in the state for its efforts to become more sustainable. Since 2010, water use has been reduced by 42 percent, natural gas use by 23 percent and electricity use by 10.5 percent—all that while adding 300,000 square feet of new buildings.

The district composts 1,800 pounds of food waste every day and reports a 27 percent recycling rate, well above the citywide average.

Meeting the district's stated goal of becoming carbon neutral in 10 years suggests a need for a formal plan to ratchet emissions down piece by piece to zero, which the district doesn't yet have.

But it would also help if she weren't a department of one, Randall says. The district could use a coordinator who could go out and, for example, help the waiting list of schools that want to start a composting program get the training needed to launch and effectively run that program.

"The operational budget in best-, medium- and worse-case scenario is red, red and red, so it's going to be a hard sell," Randall says, so she's looking for grant funding and plans to ask the district to consider using money saved through conservation to fund that position.

"I wish we had more kids and community members and parents in the board rooms asking for environmental education and a more sustainable school district, because the board is very swayed by their constituents, as they should be," she says. "Maybe we need more crisis. I hope not. That's why every other Tuesday, I stand there and I get my three minutes with the board and the superintendent. I feel kind of silly, on a certain level, because here I am again. But that's my only avenue to have a conversation with them about this work."

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story reported the district composts 18,000 pounds of food waste. That figure has been corrected. 

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