COLUMBUS, Kan. — Columbus School District voters will be requested Tuesday to approve a $14.75 million bond situation for renovation do the job, safety updates, price-preserving initiatives and constructing routine maintenance tasks.
The bond concern would cover the development of 4 new lecture rooms that would double as a storm shelter in the superior university and rework the seventh grade wing at the present substantial school campus. The storm shelter will have area for 761 occupants.
Brian Smith, superintendent of schools, claimed the upgrades would aid with staffing performance and value financial savings. The recent seventh and eighth graders are bused to the large school for elective courses and are acquainted with the campus.
“The purpose we’re on the lookout at that is since academics are licensed (in grades) 7-12 at the secondary amount, so you can come to be a great deal much more effective, as far as we could most likely reduce staffing as we shift ahead when people leave and retire,” he claimed. “There will be positions we won’t have to fill, and we could save dollars there.”
Pupils in fourth via eighth quality on the Central Elementary and Junior Significant University campus will have to go exterior in between their class periods, which is a protection problem and a squander of electrical power financial savings, Smith explained. The bond problem would aid enclose some of the existing structures on the Central campus, and then everything would be linked with a process of hallways.
Just after the high school campus is accomplished, the Central campus would endure renovations which include new lecture rooms and connectors, storm shelters, a cafeteria and kitchen, a media heart and extra. Highland Elementary would keep on being open right until construction is completed at Central Elementary and Junior Superior College. The Central campus would then home 2nd and sixth grade.
“The Highland making would near,” Smith stated. “That would depart us with 3 campuses and buildings. We would have a pre-K by means of 1st grade in our early childhood heart, a next by means of sixth grade campus and then a seventh by way of 12th grade campus.”
“If we’re just closing Highland, it would save us $18,000 in our electric and gasoline expenditures, centered on figures from the 2019-2020 college yr,” Smith said. “Plus, electrical power prices are likely to go up I believe that 10% this year. I consider we’ll preserve about $20,000 in power charges alone, and then we’ll have much more strength-economical properties.”
Faculty districts in Kansas are approved to levy home taxes for selected money. Residence taxes for these cash are computed making use of a mill charge.
Just one mill is 1 greenback of property tax levied versus $1,000 of assessed valuation. The present-day mill levy for owners in the Columbus School District 43.759 mills, and the bond situation would boost the full university levy by at the very least 9.50 mills.
“Right now, we’re still functioning on our spending budget, but the most the mill levy would be is 54.054 mills,” Smith claimed. “We could deliver it down a tiny.”
If authorised, the bond challenge would expense the operator of a $100,000 property somewhere around an additional $109 per year, according to district details.
The measure requires a very simple bulk to pass, Smith claimed. The bond would expire in 25 many years and has an common fascination level of 2.50%.
“The last university bond was passed in 1984,” Smith said. “There’s only a handful of districts in the condition of Kansas that have long gone lengthier concerning bonds remaining passed.”