Superintendent's October 2008 Update
by Mark Schweer
November 17, 2008
REVENUE PURPOSE STATEMENT ELECTION
TO BE HELD DECEMBER 9, 2008
At the October 6, 2008 Board meeting, the Board of Directors passed
a resolution calling for a special election to be held on December
9, 2008. With the implementation of the state-wide sales tax,
we will now have the ability to finance the majority if not all of
the identified facility projects in our Master Facility Plan
without using property tax dollars. But in order to do
that, we must hold a Revenue Purpose Statement Election. A
simple majority is required for passage. This will NOT result
in an increase in property taxes but rather will allow us to use
these monies for infrastructure needs as we have currently been
doing.
On September 2nd, the Board of Education and the
Administrative Team, along with Gary Bowen from BVH Architectural
Firm, revisited the Master Facility Plan which was developed
approximately three years ago. At that time, the short range
plan (0 -6 years) was comprised of the following projects:
- Redesign of the parking lot at Kreft
- 13 classroom addition at Titan Hill & parking lot improvements
- New roofs at the Middle School and Titan Hill
- Renovation of Kreft
The Kreft renovation project will be completed
in the summer of 2009. The cost of the above mentioned
projects will total more than $10 million dollars. These
projects were paid for with local option sales tax revenue.
Although after the renovation of the Kreft building has been
completed all of our facilities currently housing students will
have been totally renovated, we still have facility needs. At
the work session on September 2nd, we reviewed the
facility needs that had previously been identified comprising the
long range plan (6 – 15 years) as well as consideration of our
current space availability in light of our current enrollment.
First of all our overall enrollment is up approximately 230
students from three years ago (77 more students each year for the
past 3 three years). If our enrollment continues to grow, we
will have a classroom space problem. The following is a list
of facility needs that we have identified for the future:
- Air conditioning the High School Gyms and other areas within the High School
- Site drainage issues especially around the softball field
- Football Concession Stand Building Renovation/Expansion
- Additional gym space at the Middle School
- Additional elementary classrooms and/or new elementary school
- Central Elementary (demo or renovate)
- Replace Middle School roof over band area wing
- Renovation of pool and locker room area at Titan Hill
- Middle School Auditorium improvements
- Renovation of Athletic Building
- Multi-Purpose Room at Titan Hill
- Replace bleachers on the visitors’ sideline and improve restroom facilities
- Renovate/re-purpose ERC
In addition, there is the normal maintenance
and upkeep associated with buildings and other facilities.
There will be an additional cost associated with holding a special
election but it will be minimal. The Auditor's Office has
told us that the cost of a special election would be somewhere
between $6-8,000. The costs associated with the recent school
board election were approximately $3,000 so the actual costs
associated with running a special election will be somewhere
between $3-4,000. In the last legislative session, a law was
passed that beginning in January of 2009, elections can only be
held four times during the year (February, April, June, and
September). If such an election were to fail, another
election cannot be held for 6 months. If we were to wait and
not hold the election until September of 2009 and if it were to
fail, we could conceivably miss out on two summers of construction
time. On the contrary, we would rather be in a position of
having the greatest flexibility which having a special election now
rather than waiting would provide. Another reason for
holding the election now is that we have committed nearly all of
the available monies that we expect to collect from the remaining
years of the 10 year referendum (expires in 2012) for the Kreft
renovation project. Without passage of the Revenue Purpose
Statement, we would not have the money to complete any of the above
identified projects.
We are proud of the fact that our facilities are modern and
up-to-date. The state-wide sales tax dollars will help us
continue to fund our future infrastructure needs.
Mark A. Schweer
Superintendent of Schools
