Montevideo School District voters to decide $49.98M facilities bond, downsized from plan rejected in May
Sep. 22—MONTEVIDEO
— Voters in the Montevideo School District will return to the polls to decide a downsized version of the school facilities plan they rejected in May by a margin of only 23 votes.
School board members are asking voters to approve a $49,975,000 bond issue to address academic facilities needs on Nov. 7. They also returned a second issue to the ballot. It asks voters to approve $11,335,000 bonding for a new fine arts center — the same amount sought in May.
The bonding for the fine arts center may be approved only if the bonding in the first question is approved.
Superintendent Wade McKittrick told a dozen attendees at the school's first community meeting on the project Thursday evening that the district believes that the takeaway message from the previous referendum was "cost." In response, the new proposal lowers the price by nearly $5 million.
It does so largely by reducing the overall scope of construction. Hallways will be 12 feet wide instead of 14 feet. The gymnasium will have a perimeter 2 feet less than the previous plan, he cited as examples.
Otherwise, the plan is very similar to that offered in May
. McKittrick said the message the school heard from many is that they approved of the overall approach.
The academic project calls for remodeling the current Middle School to hold grades K-4. The Sanford Elementary and Ramsey Elementary schools will be razed. The current high school will be redeveloped for use as a grades 5-8 middle school. An addition will be built to the north of the high school to serve as a new 9-12 high school.
While the new middle school and high school will share a roof, the buildings will be separated, according to Matt Wolfert, a project architect with Bray Architects. He and the superintendent emphasized that there will not be any intermingling of middle and high school students.
The fine arts center will be built on the middle and high school campus and attached to the buildings. Infrastructure to serve the center will be built as part of the proposed new high school construction.
Were the center to be built separately, those infrastructure costs would add as much as $4 million to its costs, Wolfert explained.
The new plan includes some changes from the previous version.
The school's Career, Technology and Engineering programs will be located in the current band and choir area to provide them with more visibility. McKittrick said the school board heard from many that they'd like to see more emphasis on those opportunities.
The new plan also relocates the library.
The needs being addressed by the new proposal remain the same as before. While the school facilities have been well maintained, the infrastructure is aged and the education space is outdated, according to Wolfert. Classrooms are not sized for the number of students and technology embedded in them today, he explained.
The architect also pointed to infrastructure problems ranging from clogged sanitary sewer lines serving the science labs to the age of the two elementary schools, which are nearly 70 years old.
There is also a need to improve safety and security, which the new proposal addresses, he explained.
If approved, the state would pay for 41% of the overall costs, according to the presentation. Residential properties would pay 32%, commercial and industrial 14%; and agriculture 13%.
Montevideo credits the state's contribution to 10% equalization aid and 31% from the
Ag2School credit
. The ag credit reduces the tax burden on agricultural lands, and the state reimburses the district for that reduction.
The project would bring the annual tax levy on a $200,000 residence in the district to $500 a year, according to the presentation.
A
webpage
dedicated to providing information on the project also allows users to put their individual property into a calculator to know the tax impact on it, Wolfert said. That and other information on the proposal can be found at
.
While they agreed that the tax impact and price are important, attendees at the community meeting indicated that the district has other issues to address to win public support as well.
They said they believe that thanks to the well-maintained appearance of the exteriors of the district's schools, many do not appreciate the needs that exist inside them. They suggested that the district offer tours to allow people to see the issues first-hand.
Some of the attendees said there is also some concern in the community that the district had not maintained the former fine arts building, which was razed.
Ballots for early voting became available as of Sept. 22 at the district office in the high school. Community meetings on the project are also slated for 6 p.m. Oct. 16 at Talking Waters; noon Oct. 17 at the Montevideo Community Center; and 6 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Montevideo High School.
