District 171 Facility
Workgroup recommends construction bond
Through a selection process,
a firm known as Design West has been hired by the board to draw up building
plans according to designated needs and to facilitate and organize the passing
of a bond to fund the projects. The company has a 93% success rate in getting
bonds passed. An architect and representative of Design West, Laurence Rose,
gave a presentation and presented drawings of the proposed buildings. He
stressed that they were just preliminary drawings and can be altered. He stated
that Design West would help the school board organize a sample phone poll of the
community.
After the polling and passage
of a bond, the projects would enter a schematic design level wherein the
schematic drawings of the facilities would be fine-tuned and all ideas would be
taken into consideration, at that time, to meet the specific needs of the
district.
The proposed construction of
facilities was broken down into four specific projects: 1. classrooms and
kitchen reconstruction; 2. bus loading/unloading safety zone and parking at
Orofino Elementary; 3 multi-purpose room, Timberline HS; and 4. multi-purpose
room at OHS.
Mr. Rose showed preliminary
drawings of the OES kitchen remodeling and of the OHS practice gymnasium with
the changes that had been suggested from previous workshop meetings.
Two proposals were compared
as possible funding models to complete the new construction. The first financing
proposal is a Plant Facility Levy requiring 55% voter approval. The second type
of financing is a Construction Bond which requires a 66.67% majority of voter
approval to pass.
A discussion ensued regarding
the differences between a Plant Facility Levy and a Construction Bond. The
information provided by Design West defined the differences as follows: “A levy
is a local property tax authorized by voters to be used to operate educational
programs for students and construct and/or maintain facilities. A Construction
Bond is a debt obligation or loan authorized by voters to pay for capital
projects such as new construction and remodeling on existing buildings and is
repaid (principal and interest) with a dedicated local property tax levy.”
“A Qualified School
Construction Bond” is a bond that allows the District to receive 100%
reimbursement (or subsidy) of the interest cost on the bonds from the U.S.
Government allowing a school district to obtain what is effectively interest
free borrowing.”
The cost breakdown between
the two financing options and the savings generated by a bond over a levy are as
follows: “For a Plant Facilities
Levy of $800,000,000 on an 8 year plan, the Total out-of-pocket expense for the
district would be $8,300,000. By comparison, a $6,000,000, 20-year Qualified
School Construction Bond would have an out-of-pocket expenditure for the
district of $6,269,704.”
“Based on a property value of
$100,000, the annual cost to a taxpayer would be $42.00 (without a homeowner
exemption) and $21.00 (with a homeowner exemption). A homeowner exemption is
defined as: “applies to residential properties only and is equal to the lesser
of 50% of the home value (including up to 1 acre of land) or a maximum of
$101,153 for tax year 2010. The projected tax rate per $1,000. is equal to 42
cents.”
It was stressed that the
financial proposals for new construction are completely separate from the annual
supplemental levy voted upon on May 18. The annual supplemental levy is what
funds the running of district schools throughout the year.
Mr. Rose stated that the
temporary modular classrooms in use in many schools are the most expensive type
of buildings due to the high cost of utilities and rent. It costs $17,700 per
year to rent one modular building – housing two classrooms. He said the district
would realize significant savings in the long run by having new,
energy-efficient buildings as additions to the campuses.
There was active discussion
throughout the meeting with many people giving input and one dissenting vote.
However, the workgroup reached a consensus that the best option to complete
construction, for the least amount of money, would be backing a Qualified School
Construction Bond which enables the community to be reimbursed 100% for the
interest of the bond.