MATTAWAN, MI -- It's not hard to find signs of money in the Mattawan school district.
It's visible in the upscale homes off Q Avenue and around the lakes in Texas Township. You can see it in the students' cars in the high school parking lot.
Yet while Mattawan is one of the region's most affluent school districts, it arguably has among the worst facilities -- particularly the drab, half-century-old elementary school complex on Murray Street, which serves almost 2,000 students in grades K-5. The buildings are routinely described as severely overcrowded and sorely outdated.
School supporters say such facilities are an embarrassment in a district known for its stellar academics and programs. Indeed, the school system is one of the biggest magnets drawing new residents into the area.
"We're very close to losing our reputation in Mattawan" because of the poor facilities, longtime district resident John Mohney said at the June school board meeting. "We need to think about the future viability of Mattawan schools."
Mohney is co-chairman of a citizen committee that presented a $75 million to $80 million facilities plan to the Mattawan Consolidated School board, which accepted the committee's recommendation and tentatively approved a bond proposal for the November ballot. If passed by district voters, it would provide money to replace both elementary schools; construct additions at the middle and high schools to alleviate overcrowding; upgrade technology, and purchase new school buses.
But voter approval is far from uncertain. Similar proposals were rejected by 55 percent of the district's voters who went to the polls in May and November 2011.
In the 2011 campaigns to pass a bond issue, the battle lines more or less pitted the more traditional Mattawan community -- rural and working-class -- against the new Mattawan -- an affluent suburb of Kalamazoo.
Led by the well-paid, well-educated families moving into the district, school supporters are vocal about the need to upgrade facilities. The resistance has come primarily from those who don't have children in the schools, led by longtime Mattawan-area residents wary about a significant tax hike.
One reason for the wariness is that affluence is not evenly distributed in the district, which covers parts of two townships in Van Buren County and three in Kalamazoo County. In fact, the economic divide more or less follows Van-Kal Avenue, the north-south road that runs through the middle of the district and marks the county line.
The Van Buren County side, which consists of the east part of Antwerp Township and the southeast corner of Almena Township side, is largely middle class with some pockets of poverty.
The Kalamazoo County side consists of about two-thirds of Texas Township, the southwest corner of Oshtemo Township and the northwest corner of Prairie Ronde Township. It's an area known for its high-end homes.
Consider, for instance, that the average taxable value of a residential parcel on the Kalamazoo side of the district is currently $108,769, 42 percent higher than the $63,447 average on the Van Buren County side. A property's taxable value is roughly half of the market value, which puts the typical home in Texas Township at well over $200,000.
"There are definitely two halves; it's a definitely a schizophrenic district," said NaDean Kurzman, who runs NaDean's Coffee and Bakery in Mattawan.
District's history
Mattawan is Michigan's oldest consolidated school district, according to a history posted on the Mattawan village website.
The first brick public school was constructed in 1890 but was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1905, according to the historical account. A junior high school was built in 1936 as a WPA project; that structure is now the Center Building, which houses administration offices and is connected to the Later Elementary School. The Early Elementary School sits on its other side.
Mattawan is the third-largest school district in the Kalamazoo region, after Kalamazoo and Portage public schools, but it's unusual in that all of its facilities -- high school, middle school and the two elementaries -- are on adjacent properties.
The centralization of buildings reflects Mattawan's roots as a rural school district centered around a commercial hub in southeastern Van Buren County.
But over the past half-century, Mattawan has been pulled into the Kalamazoo-Portage metro area. And while it remains part of the Van Buren Intermediate School District and is technically a Van Buren County district, it's the Kalamazoo County side that is the real driver in the school's growth and transformation.
Much of that has to do with Texas Township, two-thirds of which is in the Mattawan Consolidated School district. It is the region's fastest-growing township, and has doubled in population every 20 years since 1960, according to U.S. Census data.
The Census counted 2,366 Texas Township residents in 1960; 5,643 in 1980; 10,919 in 2000, and 14,697 in 2010. The latest number, from 2012, is 15,403.
It's a classic story of suburban sprawl.
"As Kalamazoo and Portage filled up, people moved out because they wanted more land" and Texas Township was a natural -- lots of empty land close to the jobs and retail centers, said Marc VanLent, a real estate agent for Berkshire Hathaway HomeSales Michigan.
Barrington Shores is among the high-end suburban neighborhoods off Q Avenue in Texas Township. Home prices there start around $350,000. As of the end of June, four houses there on the market were priced at $382,000, $450,000, $688,000 and $899,000.
VanLent described the typical buyer in Texas Township as a "professional age 35 to 45. It's not just the doctors and lawyers. It's also the people from Pfizer and Stryker" and other corporate executives.
The school district both benefited from and fueled the growth. As doctors, lawyers and business executives moved into Texas and sent their children to Mattawan schools, it developed a reputation as a high-achieving district, which drew even more families.
For the past 30 or so years, Mattawan has been the region's fastest-growing school district. This year, it had 3,793 students, an increase of about 50 percent since 1990.
The strength of the Texas Township real estate market is reflected in the tax assessment data.
In most communities across Michigan, the value of the tax base took a beating during the recession. Between 2010 and 2014, the Kalamazoo Public Schools district lost 9 percent of its tax base due to foreclosures and drop in property values, while the Portage Public Schools district saw its tax base drop 6 percent.
That trend also held true on the Van Buren County side of the Mattawan school district, where the tax base went down 9 percent. But during that same time period, the Kalamazoo County side went up 10 percent in value.
Karen Lohrberg, Texas Township assistant treasurer and a longtime resident of Mattawan school district, isn't surprised by the numbers.
"During the recession, I heard about a lot of people who lost their jobs and had to move," she said about fellow Mattawan school parents. "But it seemed to be more people on the Van Buren side.
"It's seems like things are building up here and closing down over there," she said.
The electorate
Today, despite its roots in Van Buren County, 69 percent of the Mattawan school district's tax base is in Kalamazoo County, along with 60 percent of its registered voters. Four of the seven school board member are Kalamazoo County residents.
Based on the 2011 bond votes, the Mattawan residents living in Kalamazoo County are much more likely to support the bond proposals than those living in Van Buren County.
In the May 2011 election, the Van Buren and Kalamazoo precincts each had the same number of "no" votes -- 1,047. But there were 1,081 "yes" votes in Kalamazoo County, compared to 610 in Van Buren County.
In the November 2011 election, which had higher turnout, the bond proposal was defeated by 52 percent of the voters in Kalamazoo County and 59 percent in Van Buren.
Craig Smith, who lives in a mobile home park across the street from the Mattawan Later Elementary School and has children ages 3 and 5, supports the bond issue. But he also says it's a much harder sell on his side of the district, which he describes as "kind of like living on the other side of the tracks."
"This side doesn't have the money that the other side has," Smith said. For the most part, district residents in Kalamazoo County "don't have to worry about (paying for) a tax hike," he said.
Skepticism about higher taxes is reflected in a recent survey commissioned by the school district. The survey found a clear consensus on the need for better elementary facilities: 81 percent agreed something needs to be done.
But clearly, cost is a major concern. More than 60 percent in the survey said they'd back a property tax increase of $80 to $120 to build one new elementary school. That support dropped to 49 percent for a tax increase of $130 to $280 to build two new elementary schools.
The average property tax increase for the total bond package would be $330 to $370 -- well above the $130 to $280 threshold. That's based on a residence with a taxable value of $94,434, the 2014 average in the district.
With that in mind, school board is planning to divide the bond package into two parts. Proposal 1 would seek $59 million to $62 million to replace the early and later elementary schools; that would increase taxes by an average of $225 to $255.
Proposal 2 would seek $16 million to $18 million to build additions to the middle and high schools, upgrade building technology and security systems, and buy new school buses. That tax increase would average $105 to $115.
At the June board meeting, those in attendance agreed both Proposal 1 and 2 were vital. "None of us like the idea of just one passing," Mohney told the board. But, he and others said, giving voters a choice might be better strategically.
"Something is better than nothing right now," said Rusty Stafford, another co-chairmen of the citizen bond committee.
Stafford suggested selling the school improvements as an investment that will pay off for taxpayers. "I have a home value that I want to protect and a pride in the community," he said, "and I think there are lots of folks out there who feel the same way."
Loyalty to Mattawan
There's no question Mattawan residents love their schools.
"They're great," said Shannon Gunnett, who lives in the same mobile home park as Smith and has two sons in the school system. "I don't plan on moving anywhere soon. We love Mattawan."
Gloria Gamin, a special education teacher at the Allegan County Juvenile Center, and her boyfriend, an engineer at Whirlpool Corp, recently bought a house within the Mattawan district.
"We've heard great things about the schools," Gamin said. "We moved here from Kalamazoo, and we love it here. It's so much quieter."
Mohney, the bond committee co-chair, says he hears good things about the district all the time. "But it's kind of surprising that so many people who say they care about the schools" are reluctant to pass a bond issue, he said.
Maybe the real issue is the need for voter education, he said, pointing to himself as a good example.
Mohney was among the "no" voters on the May 2011 bond proposal. The reason, he said, is there was little outreach to voters outside of school staff and parents and he didn't have other information to support a significant tax hike.
Since then, he said, he's talked to school board members, toured the facilities and has gotten an eyeful as the grandparent of Mattawan elementary students. He was upset this past school year when a granddaughter reported that she got displaced from a classroom because of a leaking roof.
"Rain was pouring onto a floor," he said. "I'm very angry" that she has to attend a school in such poor physical condition.
He acknowledged the hesitancy to raise property tax bills by hundreds of dollars. "It's going to be tough" to pass the bond issue, he said.
But "we can't continue this Band-Aid approach," Mohney said. "We've reached the point where we've got to do something, and I don't know another way that doesn't cost money. I don't know how long we can keep going with these old schools."
Julie Mack covers K-12 education and writes a column for Kalamazoo Gazette. Email her at jmack1@mlive.com, call her at 269-350-0277 or follow her on Twitter @kzjuliemack.