Guest Editorial: Building Bond Election Why Now?

Being on the school board requires making a lot of tough decisions, including when to do facilities improvements and in what order. I was recently told that people are wondering about why we are now asking for approximately $5.2 building bond vote and why these projects weren't done ahead of some others.

While it's true that we have known about the needs that we hope to address should this vote be favorable, we also saw other needs - ones we could address without going to the community for a vote. We saw a security issue in our school - there were people coming and going and we had no way of knowing who was even in the building. This was addressed in the 2015-2016 improvements.

Now all the doors are locked down during school hours and visitors must come in through the front office.

At that same time, we made some modifications that allowed our office staff to be in the same area which makes it easier for them to collaborate and efficiently manage the daily operations. We also saw a major need in what we call the Viking Hallway. Renovation of the 1958 bathrooms across from the competition gym was way over due.

In addition, we had to address our lack of a compliant concession stand or we faced not being able to serve concessions at events. We were able to take on these projects and some other smaller ones with available funding as well. We talked about coming to the voters earlier. At the time, what is now known as the Ag2School bill was pending and ended up being vetoed by the governor. Given that 83% of our school funds are generated by ag land, and considering the current ag economy, we didn't feel we could go for the vote at that time.

We felt waiting until the Ag2School bill passed would be advantageous as it would provide a 40% reduction in taxes to our ag community. Our school building is fundamentally sound structurally, but when you're dealing with plumbing, electrical, flooring etc. that date back to the 1950s and 1960s, some updating is required to remain functional.

We as a board have had to evaluate the needs of the building, look at how each impacts students and our community, assess the order in which we should tackle them (they can't all be done in one summer), figure out how to fund them (there are a variety of complex funding mechanisms to weed through) and prioritize taking all the above into account.

In the end, given all of this, we decided to take on a few smaller projects that we could fund through other sources before asking the voters for their support of the larger projects remaining.

I've also been asked what we are doing across the street from the elementary and why we purchased the Bernardy property. For several years, we've been looking at a place to put a garage to house our school vans.

These vans are a significant investment - over $100,000 and are sitting out in the elements unprotected. We are currently leasing garage/storage space and so when this property went up for sale, we felt that given its perfect location to the school, we would be wise to acquire it. As you no doubt noticed, the house has been moved to another location in town and will continue to serve a family.

We are already making good use of the 2 car garage on the property and our plan is to build additional garage/storage space. If you have any questions about the project, tax impact or anything else, I encourage you to A) come to the session on August 14 at 7 p.m. in the MHS Choir Room - take a tour, see for yourself or B) visit the website (www.minneotaschools.org) and click on the link regarding the Bond Referendum to see photos and get more info or C) ask one of the board members or administrators. Don't forget, absentee ballots are available NOW in the district office.

Your vote matters so if you can't get in to the school to vote on August 22, be sure to get an absentee ballot.