Two-part question to ask community to support borrowing of about $25 million for improvements to district schools
By Kellen Olshefski
Editor
The Elkhorn Area School District Board of Education took a facility advisory committee’s recommendation to heart Monday night, voting unanimously in favor of moving forward with a two-question referendum to be placed on the ballot in April.
The two-part referendum calls for two sums of money: the first being a total of $20.42 million to address safety and maintenance concerns, a large part of which are at the district’s elementary schools, the second being $4.73 million for a new multi-use space and athletic training facility/fitness center at the high school.
The advisory committee was formed Sept. 8 to research, evaluate and support the development of a community-wide survey and make facilities recommendations to the board. The committee is comprised of Elkhorn residents – both parents and non-parents – local educators, local businessmen and women and elected officials from the City. The committee provided its recommendation at the school board’s last meeting in December.
Overall, the referendum is expected to impact district taxes by about $35 annually on a $100,000 home, according to District Business Manager Bill Trewyn.
Monday night, board members faced several different options in regards to the referendum: to do nothing, pursue a one-question referendum for the full amount, or pursue a two-question referendum.
Vice-President Barb Fischer said Monday night though she couldn’t make all of the advisory committee’s meetings, she felt discussions were great and the committee’s recommendations were based on a lot of community input and back and forth discussion.
As they had recommended two due to various reasons, she said she felt the board should follow the committee’s recommendation.
“It wasn’t just a quick decision,” she said. “It was very-well, thoroughly discussed.”
With the second question not being as readily supported by the community according to the survey results, Fischer said it’s why the question was separated.
“There’s certain projects we definitely want to see go through, or this committee felt really important to go through, and I support that,” she said. “I would rather make sure we get some, rather than none, I guess is the way they were kind of looking at it.”
As a result, Fischer said the committee separated out the things that were the most important, in terms of safety and maintenance, into question one. However, it was noted that with the questions being split, it does not mean that the second question is not a need, as the projects included in the referendum question were all determined as high priorities by the committee.
Clerk Matt O’Donell said by combining the question into one with support initially being lower for the athletic improvements, the board could risk the referendum failing simply because of that, missing out on all of the improvements that are really needed due to it.
Board member David Stebnitz said the committee rated the projects from one to three in terms of importance and the only ones that are included on the list of projects are number ones.
“The committee felt as a whole, I think unanimously, that these are the ones that we need to do, they need to be done now rather than sometime in the future when interest rates go up, the cost of materials go up,” he said.
District Administrator said about $18 million of projects were cut out from the original projects list to put together the recommendation from the committee.
President Susan Leibsle said she’s hearing support for the referendum from everyone, though she’s hearing the most support for a two-question referendum.
The board additionally took its first look at a communication plan to disseminate the information in a controlled manner to the community. Fact sheets about the referendum are expected to be ready in the near future. Additionally, a referendum information night was suggested for a yet to be determined date closer to the election.
