The subject turned to skin when the Baltimore City Council’s education committee invited schools’ chief Andrés Alonso to tell them about his plan for bringing the system’s buildings into the 21st century .

The skin in question was the kind of “skin in the game,” or the city’s commitment of its own resources, that would convince Annapolis legislators to take the financial and political risks Alonso’s proposal entails for them.

Under Alonso’s plan, the state would make a commitment to the city for about $36 million annually, about what the state has been doling out for the schools’ capital needs in recent years, but loosen some restrictions on how it is used.

That, along with predictable revenue streams from the city, would reportedly leverage long-term bonds of $1.1 billion – enough for the first phase of Alonso’s proposed overhaul, including closing, renovating and building new schools.

Bills that embody the changes Alonso wants died in the session just finished in Annapolis. The school superintendent told the council members Wednesday that the proposal would be a no-go at the next session, too, without  significant new money from the city’s pockets.

“In talking with legislators, I heard: We won’t be having these conversations unless the city has ‘skin in the game,’” Alonso said.

Bottle Tax to the Rescue?

Alonso did not specify what the revenue had to be, but for most supporters of the plan in the room that was obvious: an increase from 3 to 5 cents of the existing bottle tax, a proposal Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake put on the table in February.

Bebe Verdery, the education-reform director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said it would be a mistake for the council not to pass the bottle-tax increase as soon as possible. A 2010 report from the ACLU estimated the cost of the needed overhaul at around $3 billion.

In Annapolis, legislators “think they are going out on a limb” if they pass laws that would allow Baltimore to use its state school-construction money more flexibly and to leverage more debt than currently allowed, as Alonso and the city are asking them to do, Verdery explained.

“They are very well aware that the bottle-tax bill is before you, and they are watching very closely to see what Baltimore’s commitment is,” Verdery told the council members.

Not So Fast

But Councilman Bill Henry, for one, wasn’t buying the urgency. He floated the idea of abandoning the mayor’s proposed small cut in Baltimore’s highest-in-the-state property-tax rate and possibly using that money for school construction.

He added, too, that it would be wise to wait to get a clearer picture of the magnitude of the school system’s needs. A comprehensive engineering study of the district’s more than 150 buildings is due next month.

Henry averred that he understood the importance of “skin” in Annapolis. The state funds about two-thirds of the operating costs of Baltimore schools, and unlike in other districts, almost all of Baltimore’s school construction funds come from the state.

As a result of that and past neglect and mismanagement of the school system, state legislators often turn a skeptical eye on Baltimore’s requests – even ones such as those that were before the legislature  this winter that don’t call for more money per se.

“I don’t underestimate” the skepticism, Henry said, “but at the same time here you have an administration trying to sell a tax increase in the middle of a recession – why does that send a better message?”

Henry has not publicly declared his position on the bottle tax, which is part of the mayor’s budget package. Advocates say a vote on the bottle-tax increase would likely be close, with some council members jockeying with the mayor for more say in the city’s budget.

The bottle-tax bill has not made it out of the tax committee. Chairman Carl Stokes did not return a call asking if a date had been set for a vote.

At a hearing before Stokes’ committee last week, the bottling industry and retailers of the bottled drinks that would be affected – water, soda and juice – voiced strong opposition to the increase, saying it will drive business over the city line.

Last night, however, belonged solely to those pushing for the school overhaul.

Mice, Doors, Cold

Shannen Coleman Siciliano, co-chair of the Baltimore Education Coalition, which advocates for the city’s schools in Annapolis, urged quick passage of the bottle tax.

“In Annapolis, I kept hearing: what is the city doing about this?” she said. “Now you are hearing from the beverage industry but this also affects our 83,000 students and 6,000 teachers.”

A school psychologist, three teachers, a private architect who works on school projects and a parent trooped to the microphone to describe to the council the deplorable conditions they have found in school buildings.

One teacher talked about walls that had shifted this fall, visibly increasing the rodent population and making it hard to shut interior doors. Another mentioned an inch of water in her classroom after hard rains.

Bobbi Green, a 29-year-old  English and government teacher at Baltimore Freedom Academy, recalled telling her students to don their jackets, hats and mittens in her classroom because it was so cold.

“If the schools look like they do now when I have children. . . I will not send them to a Baltimore City schools,” she vowed. She said the schools in Lynchburg, Va., the district where she previously taught, were in far better condition than Baltimore’s.

A final pitch for urgency in lining up city revenue came from Donald Manekin, who formerly owned the construction giant Manekin LLC and once filled in pro bono as chief operating officer of the city’s schools.

Referring to the mayor’s front-and-center goal of attracting 10,000 new families to the city over the next 10 years, he said improving schools was the best bet for doing that.

“I’ve been in the real estate business for 30 years, and you couldn’t pick a better opportunity than now with these incredibly great rates in long-term bonds,” he told the committee. He added that the cost of contractors was also relatively low, thanks to the recession.

“I understand what you are saying,” Henry replied. “But the bottle-tax legislation wouldn’t go into effect until fiscal year 2014. Can we lock in those rates now?”

Manekin and Paul Shelton, the mayor’s bond counsel, agreed that such rates could probably be locked in if and when the General Assembly gives Baltimore City greater control over its share of state school construction money. That could come next winter during the 2013 legislative session.

But to do that, Shelton sharply reminded Henry, “they need something from the city.”

They need skin in the game.