By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
With the new year looming and a decision to be made, the Burlington Area School District School Board narrowed its options on referendum possibilities to three, plus an Option A.
The board accepted three plans that allow the district to decide what to do with Karcher Middle School, with an emphasis on grades 5-8 being at the middle school level.
That grade configuration was the recommendation of the administration committee, with a goal to soften grade transition and allow for students to retain elective offerings at the current grade levels.
The grade configuration will also allow students to remain in the Montessori program through sixth grade within the setup that exists.
The three options involve renovating Karcher, building a new middle school or combining new construction with remodeling at Karcher.
The maintenance that needs to be done at the other schools – including adding 21st century learning spaces – is factored into the figures given for all three plans.
Under current estimates, the cost would be roughly $43.3 million to do all renovations including Karcher, $77.2 million to build a new school and $60.2 million to split the difference between the two.
However, still to be factored into the numbers are adding a Montessori wing at the Karcher site in one of the plans, and what the district will do with what will likely be an unneeded fifth elementary school.
Option A involves athletics, arts and elective class-type renovations to be done at the high school, at the cost of about $23 million.
The School Board is now planning for a survey of the public to be done in the next two months by School Perceptions Inc., and the possibility of voting to put a referendum forth.
In order to get the referendum question on the April ballot, the board would need to make a decision at its general meeting in January.
Heavy debate
While the decision on which plans to advance turned out to be relatively simple – all the plans involve the middle school getting the most work done with grade schools remaining at their current section allotments with rebalanced enrollment – the School Board weighed a number of factors.
Board member Phil Ketterhagen said he wants to make sure the cost of doing maintenance only, $14.4 million, is used in educating the public about referendum options.
“I think people need to know we’d be spending $14.4 million just to do the maintenance,” Ketterhagen said. “At least people know what the base thing is.”
A decision was also made on grade configuration, though not without Board member Todd Terry pointing out that with fifth grade and Montessori at the middle school, five elementary schools would be “ridiculous.”
Depending on the results of the survey, a decision on what to do with either Cooper Elementary or Dyer Intermediate would be made. One of the buildings could serve other purposes than a school, said Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Gary Olsen.
There was also some concern raised by Board member Rosanne Hahn about fifth and eighth graders being in the same building. However, officials suggested that separate wings for fifth and sixth grades, seventh and eight grades and Montessori, with shared common areas, would address that.
Potential tax impact
Business Administrator Ruth Schenning handed out the preliminary numbers for a property tax rate impact if a referendum is approved.
The numbers figured on a 20-year borrowing period with interest between 3.75 and 4 percent, zero growth in property value and the closure of the City of Burlington’s tax incremental financing district No. 3.
Under that scenario, district residents would be looking at a mill rate increase between 56 cents to $1.52 per $1,000 of property value, not including the Option A work.
The numbers would work out to be between about $112 and $304 in additional taxes for a $200,000 home.
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