By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The East Troy School Board voted Monday night to have two referendum questions drafted for the April 7 ballot.
This is the fourth time the district is bringing the facility needs referendum to the community, the last one failing in November.
After listening to the residents who have been showing up in force at the working referendum meetings, the board members have changed the plans for the elementary school students.
The new plans call for the construction of a new K-1 school on the Prairie View site. The plans also include about $1 in renovations for the Middle School that were not in the last referendum. The plans for the High School remain the same.
Because the district’s debt has been falling off the books and more will be paid down by the time the referendum borrowing kicks in, the district now has $22.5 million to work with and not have to increase property taxes. This amount allows them to build the new school and improve both the middle and high school.
There will be a second question on the ballot asking the community if they would support an extra $2.2 million in borrowing to make the new school at the Prairie View sites a K-2 school. This would alleviate the overcrowding at Prairie View and put the second graders back in the primary building, where teachers say they should be.
If the voters say yes to the second question, there will be a slight tax increase. For a $150,000 house, the increase would be $24 a year.
“That’s $2 a month,” Hibner said Tuesday. “It allows us to take care of the whole elementary level, from PreK to fifth grade. It shows that we value all the grade levels.”
If the second question passes, it would solve the district’s elementary needs for 20-30 years Zess said Tuesday.
If it fails, the new school at Prairie View will still be constructed with a large enough core that a future addition can be put on it to move second grade into the building, which is the district’s goal.
The board wanted to make sure the new school would not run into the same problems Prairie View had experienced since its core areas, such as the gym and cafeteria were not constructed large enough to accommodate and addition to the school.
The new referendum plan has $169,605 allotted for renovation of part of Doubek Elementary School to house a administration. Using Doubek will give the district enough room to centralize administration and Hibner said Monday night that administration cut the cost of renovations down from $1.1 million to the $169,605 because they felt it was more important to use that money for the Middle School needs.
There was some debate about the money being set aside with the referendum for the demolition of Chester Byrnes and part of Doubek, $225,000 and $125, 000 respectively.
Board member Martha Bresler expressed concern that even having the language in the referendum for demolition money would hurt the chances of the referendum passing, as she has been hearing from community members that they don’t like the idea of demoing the buildings.
The board members discussed it and while it was emphasized that demolition is going to be the district’s last resort, the money had to be there in case those building needed to come down at some point.
“I don’t want to get caught in the situation where we’re spending $30, 000 to $40,000 a year to keep these buildings running,” Zess said.
Board Member Dawn Buchholtz said she thought they could use money from Fund 10 for demolition at later date if needed because that fund is designed for large, one-time project or purchases.
In the end, the board voted to have the wording put into the referendum allotting the money for “possible” demolition.
I have been critical of the last two referendums, but kudos to the Board. You got it right this time. This is a wise use of resources for those of us that want to preserve our home values while still keeping taxes in check. You have my “yes” and “yes”!