Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Austin School Board on Monday night held a discussion regarding a possible referendum in November that if passed would put money toward building improvements across the district.

While no definite decision was made Monday night, the board did unanimously agree to continue the process forward through the summer, approving next steps that includes a review and comment submission to the Minnesota Department of Education by June 17 that essentially pleads the case for the district regarding the need for the referendum.

“Our teams will work together on this significant document, building our case to the state that this is in the best interest of the taxpayers to move this forward to the voters,” said ISG Education Strategy Specialist Sue Peterson during a presentation to the board Monday night.

Details of any proposed referendum are a ways out from being finalized, but it could be presented to voters in the form of two questions, the first being for the issue of general obligation school building bonds not to exceed $54.7 million for the acquisition and betterment of school sites and facilities. As part of that improvements would consist of safety, security and accessibility improvements along with building capital maintenance and infrastructure along with classroom improvements and renovations.

The second question is reliant on the first question passing and could consist of the issuing of general obligation school building bonds not to exceed $12 million for building improvements but would largely focus on renovation of Bud Higgins Pool at Ellis Middle School.

According to a presentation Monday night during the board’s meeting, the proposed questions are the result of facility assessments, enrollment and demographic analysis, community input and ongoing planning discussion of  a multi-year span that began on January 23, 2023, although conversations actually began prior to that in 2022.

In 2023, engineers walked the buildings within the district to assess needs. At one point, the total cost of these projects reached $84 million, however, some things were taken out when it was realized that it likely exceeded the threshold of what voters could accept in terms of increased tax impacts.

It was also determined that some of these things could be tackled with budgeted funds from elsewhere.

As it stands now, a combined tax impact for both questions for a house with a market value of $200,000 would result in a monthly increase of $16.

The term of the bonds would be 20 years.

According to a bench mark survey conducted by The Morris Leatherman Company in March and April of this year, of the 400 households surveyed, 43% said they were open to a referendum with another 29% being agreeable to all.

Just under that, 28% were against any kind of referendum with 1% registering as unsure.

In the same survey, 33% were against a tax increase because of a proposed referendum while 26% said they would be okay with $16, echoing the increase of the home valued at $200,000.

When asked by Board Chair Carolyn Dube how projects get tackled without a passed resolution, Director of Facilities Services Joe Adamson said they will concentrate on what they can when they can with a reminder, however, that the unexpected does happen..

“We’ll continue what we’ve been doing. Tackling the stuff we can with the budgets we have,” he said. “Stuff comes in between sometimes and we have to shift and do something else.”

Pending approval by the state, next steps for the district involve discussion at the July 14 meeting about the direction of the possible referendum, which would in turn be followed by an important Aug. 12 date. That’s when the state requires an adopted resolution in order to be on the Nov. 4 ballot.