Many steps involved in the process of selecting new school facility

To the Editor,

     What is the plan for improving our school facilities? How did we come up with the proposed school facility plan?

     When I started in the Monticello Community School District during the summer of 2016, the most popular comment that I heard was, “We need to do something about our school facilities.” When I asked the question, “What should we do?” everyone had a different idea. Then during the development of the Strategic Operating Plan last school year, this was such a theme that school facilities became an important area of emphasis in our Strategic Operating Plan.

     We officially formed the School Facilities Committee during the summer of 2017 and our first meeting was a tour of our school facilities in July. Then in September, we began to investigate this history of our school district, why the last bond election failed, bonding capacity, tax implications, SAVE account, community feelings toward school facilities, bond elections, etc. Three themes emerged right away with the committee. Remodel vs. Rebuild? Central Campus vs. Multiple Campus Sites? How can we keep the costs as low as possible?

     In November, the school board hired OPN Architects to assist us in the development of this plan. The School Facilities Committee worked with OPN to assess the state of the current facilities, get feedback from the community/staff, and narrow the cost of possible school facility options. We discovered that the costs of updating our schools to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements, fire code standards, and general maintenance was almost $20 million. That did not address some of the other needed facility changes like updating the entrances for safety, increasing classroom space, adding air-conditioning, fixing the moisture problem behind the brick at the high school, etc. Then we held two community forums, one at the high school and one at the middle school. In addition, we collected information from the staff and the school board. Each of these groups identified possible facility solutions for our community. We narrowed the list down to the most popular facility options and OPN came back to the School Facilities Committee with cost estimates for each of those options. Those cost estimates literally took our breath away. Each option came back with a price tag in the $40 million range. It became very clear that we would need to address our School Facility problems with a multi-phase plan. The School Facilities Committee met again two weeks later and began problem solving. In March and April, the School Facilities Committee considered all possible facility options and the data led the committee to one solution, to build a 5-8-grade addition on at the high school site. This option allowed us to have no students left in the current middle school and was the most financially responsible option for our community. The School Facilities Committee then took this solution to the community to collect signatures to request the school board to call for an election. After collecting almost 300 signatures, this solution was brought to the school board for final approval.

     On May 9, the school board voted unanimously to call for an election to be held on Sept. 11, 2018. This election will ask the voters of the Monticello School District to consider approval of a $15 million General Obligation Bond to support the first phase of this project. The school also committed $7 million in Revenue Bonds to this project, which are funded through the current penny sales tax to keep the costs of property taxes to a minimum. The bond will increase property taxes $2.75 per $1,000 of tax valuation. That puts the total school tax rate up to a total of $15.03 per $1,000 of tax valuation and that is only a 66-cent tax increase from four years ago.

     The process of selecting the most appropriate school facility option for our community has taken 10 months to complete. The decision was based on financial data, community opinion, and what is in the best interest of our students and our community. It was done in an open-minded and fair way, and considered the opinions of hundreds of people in our community. The process is important because we wanted to narrow our options down to a solution the community could get behind. This solution is practical, financially responsible, and the first step in a sensible multi-phase plan. We all know that the prices for construction continue to rise each year, so not finding a solution now will continue to cost more each year.

     If you want to learn more facts about this project, please feel free to visit our school district website (www.monticello.k12.ia.us). This website is committed to sharing the facts of this project, so please explore the documents and videos available. I hope this information can answer all of your questions, but if you still have questions or comments, do not hesitate to send me an e-mail at brian.jaeger@monticello.k12.ia.us.

     Thank you for your continued support of the MCSD.

Sincerely,

Dr. Brian Jaeger

Superintendent

Monticello School District