[Busmgrs] Buildings and Bonds collection User Guides

Wed Dec 14 09:25:16 PST 2016

Dear Business Managers,

Thank you for your patience as we work to get you more information on the two new collections, District Bonds 2016-17 and Buildings 2016-17, that opened on December 8. These collections, required by SB 540 passed in 2013, will provide the state with state-wide information about district building inventory and the level of bonded indebtedness across the state. This information will be used to help guide the Oregon School Capital Improvement Matching Program to ensure that state and local dollars are addressing the most significant facility needs first.

As many of you are aware, even though the collection opened on December 8, ODE did not have any documentation to provide with the start of this collection. I am happy to announce that we have user guides for both collections. They are attached to this email. These should provide detailed information about the type of information that we are looking for in these collections. I would like to take a moment to highlight some of the fields and the type of information that ODE requires.

The first issue is not a field, but a definition. What is a building? ODE is defining a building as a structure tied to a foundation and has an energy source. So the easy buildings are classrooms, schools administrative offices, maintenance shops, etc. Some buildings that also need to be included that may not be obvious include any stadiums or bleachers that are tied to a foundation and have an energy source. A bus barn would likely fit this definition as well. Structures that are outside this definition include storage sheds that have no energy source of mobile concession stands that are not tied to a foundation. Please note that portable classrooms are buildings.

The second issue is the field building identifier. This field will be used to identify buildings across the state. Thus, we need to ensure that each building has a unique identifier for data purposes. Each building ID number will start with the district's institution ID and then a district assigned building number. So for example, a building ID of 1234001 means that it is with district ID 1234 and is building 001.

The third issue is building name. It will make state comparisons and district-to district comparisons easier if all districts use the same names for buildings. In the user guide we have provided a list of common names we would like districts to use. For example, please use Gym to describe any gymnasium. This way we don't get all variations of that name: gym, gym., Gym, Gymnasium, gymnasium, etc. This list will likely expand in years to come.

Additional information is found in the user guide for the Buildings collection.

The District Bonds collection should be straight forward. Every district will need to fill this out. If your district has never passed a bond, then you can click the "no" box and you should be done. If your district has passed a bond, then a few more pieces of information and you should be done with the collection.

Thank you again for helping us out with this collection. Please note that we are requesting an extension to the end date for the collection. It is currently scheduled to close January 8 and we are asking for an extension to January 30. Because this is a new collection, we do not see any reason that it won't be extended.

Thank you,
Michael

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