Local News
FDL School District Working Towards Spring Referendum Questions
The
Lac
is working towards a potential referendum question – or two – to place on the
spring ballot. Superintendent Jim Sebert says the school board discussed the
plans again during a meeting last night, and he tells us they are almost ready
to make the final decisions.
Sebert says “we
already have drafts of what the referendum questions would look like for the
ballots, as well as the motion that the board would have to approve in a
special meeting – which we will have next Monday, December 17th. So
a week from today, we should be officially set for an April 2nd,
2019 referendum where we’re making really nice progress.”
Sebert says one question would focus on the three key areas
identified in the community survey – including safety and security, building
infrastructure, and building exterior improvements – like parking lots and other features.
He tells us the process has whittled down plans to a point where the community is
more likely to approve the requests.
Sebert explains that “the
survey said somewhere in the $90 million range would be acceptable to the
community, so we’re at $91.5 million of projects in those areas. And then the
board is seriously considering a second question that would look at air
conditioning for the schools that currently don’t have it. And that would be
around $7 million to air condition the schools that currently don’t have it.”
About half of the schools in the district either don’t have air conditioning or need an upgrade to their systems.
All-in-all, Sebert is excited about the future of the district, especially if the referendum is approved this spring.
He adds that “this
would be a nice opportunity for us to really update the district in a number of
fashions and set the district up for decades. So we’re really excited about the
opportunity. We have a tremendous amount to be proud of in our financial
picture, we really do. To get to a point where we could do this at a relatively
small tax-rate increase is pretty outstanding.”
If approved in April, the referendum would increase tax rates by about $40 for a $100,000 property value.