By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
ASHWAUBENON – Following a public forum the school district held about possibly holding a referendum next year, the Ashwaubenon school board discussed options Wednesday, June 12, on how to proceed with the feedback.
Business Manager Keith Lucius said the comments could help the board decide what to include in a community survey to be sent to district residents this fall and ultimately what referendum question or questions to ask next April.
Some of the projects being looked at with the existing facilities include safety improvements at two schools, replacing three gym floors, repairing the high school track and remodeling the old high school commons into a new district office.
Lucius noted another proposal to install air conditioning in three school buildings received strong support from those at the forum, which around 50 people attended.
Along with the health benefits air conditioning could have for those with breathing problems, forum attendees also stated it would benefit the learning environment.
Over the past five school years, Lucius said it was hot enough in around 35-38 days per school year when air conditioning could have been used had it been installed throughout Pioneer, Valley View and the high school.
The construction of a new multi-purpose building is also being considered with a cost estimate ranging from $6-8 million.
Based on $14-15 million worth of total project costs, Lucius informed the board earlier this year the district could hold a capital referendum next year with the debt to be paid back over 15 years at around $1 million per year and keep the tax rate constant.
This is because of the district paying off its previous referenda debt this year.
Though 11 projects were presented at the forum as part of a possible capital referendum, Lucius said issues that could be part of an operational referendum were also discussed.
Those include additional mental health support for students, operating costs for air conditioning that could be installed and additional funds for the operating budget to reduce the need for budget cuts.
“I think that’s something we need to consider,” Lucius said. “We had some discussions about that. Once again, I’ll remind you, state law allows us to pass two referendum questions in a year, so we have to be strategic on how we do it.”
Lucius said he has been advised by the district’s financial consultant, Baird, about the possibility of being able to combine a capital and operational referendum into one question.
“We’re going to explore that a little bit and talk about those options,” he said.
Lucius said there was also strong support voiced at the forum for having a separate question on whether to build a new multi-purpose facility.
“This group felt strongly that an operational question was more important than the multi-use facility,” he said.
Lucius said another public forum could be held to get more input prior to sending out the survey.
“I would encourage you that we use the survey as kind of the last step before we set the question, because the survey really is the chance for the entire community,” he said. “And we’d never get a group together with feedback face-to-face with the entire community. The survey’s going to give that input. I think we use these face-to-face meetings to help us define the questions that we want to ask the community in the survey.”
Director of Pupil Services Tammy Nicholson will be working on putting together a possible operational referendum with related costs to present for public input.
“We’ve been lucky enough to have the mental health grant to add some supports this past school year,” Nicholson said. “We’ve had wonderful results with the small amount of services we were able to put in place. We have a lot of great data that was used by our team to put together this year’s mental health grant. We won’t know yet for a few weeks if we get that or not, but at least this data helps guide these discussions as far as what did we put in place, how many kids were able to be serviced…”
In the event the district would hold an operational referendum to override the revenue limit, Lucius said those additional expenses would be ongoing and not end after three to five years.
“Adding services for three years and then having it go away because the referendum expires doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It’s got to be a long-term solution, and we need to be open with the community, if that’s the direction they want to go… Three years from now or five years, depending if we have a three- or five-year question, we’re going to come back and ask for similar (amounts), and be adjusted for where costs are or other needs.”
Lucius said the survey has a twofold purpose by educating the public and finding out the level of support from district residents.
School board member Paul Trondson said supporting school security and safety should be “no-brainers.”
“It’s probably even above the air conditioning,” Trondson said. “I agree with your comment about the air conditioning as well. I was kind of amazed (with) the positive feedback from the group.”
Trondson suggested possibly using the district’s operational budget to repair the gymnasium foundation at Pioneer, one of the possible referendum projects estimated to cost $150,000.
Lucius said the foundation wouldn’t get “significantly worse” in a year’s time when contractors could be lined up to fix that the summer after holding a referendum.
Board Treasurer Michelle Garrigan said she wants to inform district voters as to what the current district office building would be used for, if the board agreed to include remodeling the old high school commons into a new district office in a referendum question.
“I would say that we should not propose moving the district office as part of the referendum then, until we know what all the space can be used for and that we have the money to do with whatever we want with all the space,” Garrigan said.
Lucius suggested not deciding on the district office as the next step, but instead discussing that prior to setting the final referendum question.