Representatives with Denovo Construction including facility planner Patrick Davis, center, present three project options to members of the Union CSD school board during the Monday, June 17 regular meeting held in La Porte City. This week, the district's Community Leadership Group met on Tuesday and Wednesday to go over the three options. All three options would require the passage of a bond referendum to fund. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

LA PORTE CITY – The Union school board is currently considering placing a bond referendum before voters this coming November.

During the Monday, June 17, regular board meeting, representatives from both Denovo Construction and the financial firm Piper Sandler presented several options regarding future facility improvements – options financed with a mix of general obligation school bonds and SAVE (sales tax) revenue.

While the use of SAVE/PPEL funds for facility improvements requires no increase to the district’s property tax rate, the sale of general obligation bonds would raise taxes and thus first requires passage of a bond referendum. Such a referendum would need a 60% supermajority in favor to pass.

Patrick Davis, a facility planner with Denovo, began the presentation last Monday evening by sharing what the district has done so far as part of its work to upgrade facilities. In March of this year, the board approved an $8,500 contract with Denovo for a long-range facility planning assessment. On May 10, Denovo delivered to the district the results of that assessment; on May 21, Union’s Facility Committee met and went over the results; and on June 10, Denovo delivered the committee’s recommendation list to the district which school board members then used to create a checklist of upgrades they would like to see accomplished over the next five years.

Davis shared the results of the school members’ individual checklists by presenting three options from least to most expensive — each option building on the previous option’s scope. All three options include work at each of the district’s four school buildings.

Recent images depicting Union High School’s deteriorating Family & Consumer Sciences (FCS) classroom. Renovating the FCS classroom along with two other high school life science rooms was recommended recently to the school board by Denovo Construction as one of several facility improvement options. The board hired Denovo last March to complete a long-range facility planning assessment for the district. CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS

The project options

The first option, Project No. 1, is “infrastructure focused.” Project costs are approximately $15,133,000 and would include HVAC/fire safety/roof upgrades at the high school as well as parking lot repairs/replacement, and restroom upgrades; roof repairs and restroom upgrades at the middle school; and safety/restroom upgrades at the two elementary schools.

The second option, Project No. 2, takes everything from No. 1 and adds “marketability” by way of athletic improvements. Project costs are approximately $20,995,000 and would add sidewalk replacement/repair plus a new practice gym at the high school while also renovating locker rooms to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The middle school would also undergo a locker room renovation.

The final option, Project No. 3, would cost approximately $25,745,000 and adds renovating the high school cafeteria, converting the high school library into a student center, adding air conditioning to the gyms at both the middle and elementary schools, and repairing the parking lot at Dysart-Geneseo Elementary.

The option to renovate three life science classrooms at the high school including the outdated and deteriorating Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) room received no votes by board members as part of their checklists; however, Davis said doing such a renovation would greatly increase the marketability of any possible bond referendum. The cost to upgrade those three classrooms would run roughly $1,400,000.

FCS classroom pictured during the 2023-24 school year. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

“When I go into a lot of different schools and see these educational spaces, that FCS room is something that a lot of different districts have invested in getting up to speed because whether or not it’s adding a commercial style kitchen – and having that for a learning objective for students – that’s pretty marketable,” Davis told the board. “Not pushing you one way or another, I’m just telling you what I see.”

Prior to Davis explaining the three project options, Travis Squires with Piper Sandler gave a brief overview of the district’s debt limit ($45.7 million) and borrowing capacity. Later in the meeting, he presented different financial options the district could utilize to pay for the three facility projects. None of Squires’ financial options raised property taxes by more than $2.70 per $1,000 of taxable value; an increase of the full $2.70 to the district’s levy would net roughly $19.7 million in general obligation bonds.

“Your district is not overly-leveraged,” Squires said at one point. “And your tax rate isn’t that high but that’s all relative. Everybody feels like their taxes are too high. Relative to other districts your size … you’re on the low end.”

Squires also said Supt. John Howard was not keen to use more than $6 million in SAVE funds as part of any facility improvement plans that also included G.O. bonds.

Board discussion

Denovo’s representatives then asked the board for guidance going forward in terms of what they could pitch to the district’s Community Leadership Group which was scheduled to meet this week on June 25 and 26.

“Nothing is set in stone right now,” Davis said. “There’s a lot on the table but what we’re hoping to learn tonight is what the board’s priorities are.”

For his part, board president Corey Lorenzen said he was focused on safety and security – Project No. 1 – due to tax implications.

“From a personal standpoint, I feel like the district has spent 35 years kicking the can down the road on safety and security. … We can’t kick the can any longer … [but] we’ve improved things like athletic facilities and auditoriums and [school branding door graphics] and all these other things and we still have declining enrollment.”

Lorenzen – calling himself a “conservative curmudgeon” – said his personal priority was Project No. 1 but that he “respects all opinions” and thus would like “the community’s perspective” on the spectrum of projects.

Board members Reid Carlson, Maureen Hanson, Carleen McGivern, and Brandon Paine (Lindsay Pipho and Ben Schemmel were absent) also provided feedback with Hanson stating she was “troubled” by the lack of “educational aspects” of the infrastructure-heavy projects, while Carlson seemed to lean toward Project No. 2 – minus the practice gym and with the addition of possibly the life science room renovations.

Paine also favored Project No. 2 but was in favor of keeping the practice gym due to the difficulty of scheduling gym time particularly in the winter months, he said.

In the end, the board recommended Denovo present all three options to the Community Leadership Group – keeping SAVE at $6 million or less alongside any G.O. bonds – and go from there.

If the school board does decide to place a bond referendum on the Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024 ballot, they must present both a signed bond petition (garnering at least 25% of the number of voters who participated in the last school election) and an approved resolution calling for the election to the controlling county auditor no later than Aug. 28, 2024.

Due to a legislative change signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds, this November will be the first year school bond elections in Iowa are held at the same time as federal elections.