Voters in Portsmouth pass $21.44 million school improvement bond. Now what?

PORTSMOUTH — The $21.44 million school improvement bond referendum question put before voters on Tuesday passed overwhelmingly, so what next?

The Portsmouth School Department now has a limited-time opportunity to receive a 40% reimbursement, a total of $8.6 million, from the Rhode Island Department of Education to offset the cost of the projects.

Though the results are unofficial until they are certified by the state Board of Elections, 2,164 voters, or 62%, chose to approve what was Question 1 on the ballot, while 1,330 voters, or 38%, chose to reject it.

More: What's next for the Portsmouth senior center plan following Tuesday's vote?

On Wednesday morning, mail-in ballots were delivered to Town Hall and were in the process of being counted. Roughly 22% of registered voters in Portsmouth participated in the off-year election.

A large turnout for a special election

Superintendent Dr. Thomas Kenworthy said both he and the Portsmouth School Committee are grateful people showed up to vote and overwhelmingly supported the school bond question.

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"This was a large turnout for a special election, without there being a national election on the ballot," he said. "So it was good to see that people really took their time to learn as much as they could, and we're happy with the result."

The School Department now will move on to the next step in the process of updating school facilities. Kenworthy said final approval is needed from the K-12 Council at the Rhode Island Department of Education. The district currently has full approval for the upgrades from the school building authority.

More: Portsmouth election: See the results of the school bond, senior center referendum questions

"Now my understanding is the final approval from the K-12 Council will be on the December agenda, and we'll get that and we can move forward. First construction is supposed to be next summer," he said.

Once the plans are approved, Kenworthy said the School Department will put out referrals for proposals for an architect and project manager to spearhead these construction projects.

"This should really just improve the overall health and safety for all of our schools for the foreseeable future, so it's good," he said.

Kenworth said department officials are happy the community overwhelmingly supported the bond but, prior to the vote, they weren't taking it's passing for granted.

"I think anytime we're talking about a $21.4 million bond, we certainly tried to make the argument as to why these improvements were needed," he said. "We weren't taking it lightly, either, that we were asking voters to approve this amount of money.

"But I think with the arguments we were able to make for why these improvements are necessary, and with the increased reimbursements we will receive for these projects, this was definitely the best time for us to be doing something like this in Portsmouth."

More: Portsmouth voters will decide on school upgrades for town's 2,300 students

Construction for all of these projects is scheduled to begin this summer and will be completed over the following two summers.

"We will make sure that everything is on track to do that, and we will work through a transparent public process with the School Committee and Town Council along the way, to keep everybody informed of what's happening," he said.

Where is the money going?

School Committee Chair Emily Copeland said Wednesday she is thrilled voters of Portsmouth supported the bond.

"I'd really like to thank them for taking the time to learn about it. It's a discussion, but I think the voters learned about it and saw why it made sense not only for the schools, but also for the tax payers and the community as well," she said. "And it's going to go a long way to really ensuring kind of a long-term viability of our schools, and having hopefully to avoid building a new school."

The passing of the bond, Copeland said, means Portsmouth Schools will have so many enhancements made to them, and some of those enhancements will exceed state requirements.

More: What voters need to know about Portsmouth's $21.44 million school improvement bond

"The entire ventilation systems at Hathaway and Melville will be redone, so we'll not only meet state standards, we'll exceed them," she said. "Because of these new systems, we're going to be able to add air conditioning, which has been a big issue at Hathaway on the second floor, and also do it in a cost effective way.

"We'll be able to have an elevator at Hathaway, which is really important for accessibility. For all schools, I mean the buildings are well maintained, and the custodial staff does an excellent job, but they're old. And the bathrooms I think is one of the places you can just see that."

The renovated bathrooms will all be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, will have new fixtures and everything else will be upgraded, which Copeland says goes toward the longevity of the schools.

"Then at the high school, the one road that is under the district's total control — the other roads are more town issues because they have houses on them — but we're going to be able to repave that, widen it, add parking," she said. "We'll be able to add air conditioning over at the new gym, which is something I think is important to keep it safer for our athletes and students during gym. But we also have graduation inside the gym, you know that can be a pretty warm event."

Adding air conditioning to the new gym will make it much more of a usable structure, Copeland said, and could even bring in revenue to the School Department because community events could be held there.

"I just think there are so many ways this is going to be really positive for Portsmouth school students," she said.

Portsmouth residents, Copeland said, value education and want to provide good facilities for their children. Schools, she said, often are the heartbeat of the community.

"From Friday night football games, to plays, to the kids events and things like that," Copeland said. "So again, I just really appreciate the fact that residents took the time to get educated on the bond, then actually turn out, because this is an off year, not really a lot of other issues on the ballot."

Copeland said she'd like to thank the Portsmouth School Department and Friends of Portsmouth Schools for working so hard on getting information about the bond out to the community.

Bethany Brunelle can be reached at bbrunelle@newportri.com 575-644-1223 or @bethanyfreuden1 on Twitter, Insta: bethanyfreudenthal, TikTok: becomingmrsraja, Muckrack: https://muckrack.com/bethany-freudenthal

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Portsmouth RI election: Voters pass school improvement bond. Now what?