Shelley School Board sends proposed HS bond to voters

SHELLEY:  At last night’s meeting, Shelley’s school board approved a motion to send the voters a proposed 20-year high school bond in the upcoming November election.

After ringing endorsements from school board chair Cole Clinger and board member Lisa Marlow, the board voted unanimously to allow voters to decide if they want a new high school.

See Shelley school board to vote on whether or not to bond for a new high school article.

Clinger and Marlow served on the building committee with ten community members, including the superintendent.

“I was very critical of just everything because this is a very difficult economic time for individuals, and we are going out and asking a lot of community members who are on fixed incomes and are impacted by this, right? So, we looked at various options on whether to build a new middle school or elementary school, and we went class by class at the high school level, deciding the best option,” Clinger said.

“I can say we have done our due diligence for the community. We’ve done everything we can to provide the best of what we have. And I feel good about it. So now I will turn it over to the community,” Marlow said.

The total 20-year bond cost is $69,905,502, with bond proceeds to build a new high school at $67,000,800. The interest cost on the bond is $31,180,250. However, it is lessened by the State’s Projected Levy Equalization of 29.38% or minus $29,082,748.

After deducting the homeowner’s exemption, the proposed bond’s tax impact per household is $313 per $100,000 valuation on the property.

Superintendent Chad Williams told the board that currently, Shelley has a bond cost of $704 per student, which is in the middle of the bracket of other school districts with bonds.

“If the bond passes, Shelley will have the third-highest bond cost per student compared with other schools,” William said. If you figure out the overall tax, we are currently in the middle of the pack compared to other schools. If the bond were to pass, we would be second.

Based on the current school year, the district grew 46 students, or 1.85% from last year.

Williams told the school board that if we build the new high school according to the projections and with enrollment this year, we will have a class-size capacity of 240 students. Based on a 2% growth, it will be September 2040 before we reach that capacity with the proposed high school.

“Every year since I’ve been here, we’ve been saying it’s going to grow, but we’ve never grown faster than under 2%,” William said.

According to the presentation material, the proposed high school will be designed to be added on to, with a 1000 Student Capacity Core area. The new high school will feature a 600-seat auditorium within it. Once built, the new high school will have four classrooms more than the current one.

It will be based on the design of five other schools which have been built.

“Our school is not going to be exactly like any of these, but it will be close,” William said. “All of these are much bigger than we anticipate ours will be based on our limited funding.”

William said the proposed high school would have to be constructed close to the current Ag/CTE building so kids can walk to and from it until one can be constructed, which is part of future considerations. The exact location of the new high school will be determined in the future if the bond passes.

The school district supplemental levy election is going to be on August 29.

A supplemental levy is a two-year funding solution for operational expenses, like teacher salaries, textbooks, or technology. It necessitates a simple majority vote and is intended to provide additional funding to support the ongoing needs of the school district beyond the state-provided funding, according to the school district website.

The graphs cited in this article can be found at Shelley Schools.org New High School Presentation August 2023.