Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012
BSD proposes bond issue: $9.2 million question next step in strategic plan
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By Allen Edmonds, The Democrat Missourian
Belton School District officials will roll the dice April 3 on a bond issue that offers the next step on a strategic facility plan developed in the 1990s.
The proposed amount will be far less than those rejected by voters in the past 12 months in Lee’s Summit and Liberty. Superintendent Andrew Underwood said this week he understands voter skittishness on tax increases.
“We’ve had some feedback that says this is a good idea, but we just can’t afford it,” Underwood said.
However, he said, once district patrons polled realized that the planned $9.5 million bond issue, which represents a 12-cent levy increase, would result in a tax hike of only $2 per month on the owner of a $100,000 home, the district’s polling agency received a more positive response.
He said Patron Insight, the independent firm contracted by the district to do the phone survey on tax tolerance, reported 66 percent of patrons polled either “lean in favor” or “strongly favor” the proposed issue.
“I feel pretty good about that. I told the board that if we didn’t get results pretty close to that, I wouldn’t be interested in moving forward at this time,” Underwood said.
The firm polled 400 Belton School District patrons from different geographic territories and a variety of age groups.
“People are always very curious about how you spend their money,” he said. “In this survey, we found that on a ‘value received for dollars spent,’ 77 percent graded us a ‘C’ or higher, and 53 percent graded us ‘B’ or higher,” he said.
On a 5-point scale, district patrons surveyed combined to give the Belton School District a 3.89 score, with common strengths being noted as teachers, administration, early childhood programs, facilities and school board, according to Underwood.
Areas that need improvement, according to patrons polled, include technology and some facility needs, “which is in essence, what we’re trying to do with this bond issue,” he said.
With the $9.5 million, the district hopes to begin construction this August on a project that would expand the current Belton High School Freshman Center building at M-58 and Cleveland. The expanded building would house grades 10-12. In addition, work would be completed on the current Yeokum Middle School at Mill and Cleveland to house technology and vocational programs. Grades 7-9 would be moved to the current Belton High School building at South Scott and Pirate Parkway.
Underwood stressed that the expenditures are not earmarked for operations, nor are they designated for what he would consider amenities.
“There are a lot of core classes that are going to be built as part of this project,” he said. “This is going to be total usable space for academics.”
He said that operationally, the district remains in strong condition despite the rough economic times.
“We are maintaining a 25 percent reserve fund balance, and we took some steps last year to ensure we remained in that condition.”
Those steps included eliminating and combining a number of administrative positions that combined for a total of $1.5 million in payroll cuts.
“But, we have been able to maintain our class sizes, and because of unexpected growth, we’ve actually needed to hire a couple of teachers, and we were glad we were able to do that,” Underwood said.
He said he estimates the levy increase would expire after 20 years, “but much of that depends on assessed valuation. We always try to plan for the worst-case scenario and hope that it gets taken care of much sooner.”
Underwood pointed to the current Research Belton Hospital renovations that are ongoing, as well as both ongoing and planned retail development as signs that property valuation figures could cause the debt to be paid off sooner. In addition, he said, any residential construction could cause the bonds to be paid off sooner.
Meanwhile, he said, the freshman center and middle school projects would likely, depending on weather, be completed by January 2014 if approved by voters.
The slow economy, he agreed, makes the present time ideal to begin a project of this type.
“This is a great time for us to get the best bang for our buck,” because of more competitive pricing offered by construction firms that are desperate for work.
If the proposal fails at the polls, Underwood said the district would do its best to “maintain what we have, wait a few years and come back, probably with a similar plan.”
However, he said, at that time, the need could be much more immediate and students might be in the midst of overcrowding before the project could be completed.
For instance, current class sizes for the grades 9-12 group average between 330 and 360. In the kindergarten through fourth grade group, sizes average between 370 and 420.
“The growth is coming,” Underwood said.
“In the past, we’ve had individual large classes, but this younger group has consistently large classes. The smallest of those is 370.”
The total annual tax increase for the owner of a $100,000 home would be $22.80 a year, “and we’re not finding that people feel that’s a heavy burden,” he said.
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